The Joke's On You
by deepfriedcake
Summary: Lorelai's April Fools' Day prank takes an unexpected turn.
1. Happy Fool's Day, Baby!

**Author's Notes:** This story begins on April Fools' Day during Season 3. I've pushed back one major happening in the show to coincide with the story, but otherwise everything else pretty much is the same. Enjoy the story - and watch out for pranks tomorrow!

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><p><strong>Happy Fools' Day, Baby!<strong>

The morning was chilly and gray and contained just enough mist in the air to make everyone and everything that came into contact with it feel damp. Even the Stars Hollow residents who were normally amiable and pleasant felt out-of-sorts and cranky. All anyone wanted was a hot cup of coffee or tea, a quiet place to sit while sipping it, and to be left the hell alone.

Even Rory Gilmore had succumbed to the dreariness of the day. She sat slumped in the passenger seat of the Jeep, her eyes half-closed, her mouth opening only to yawn.

"Hey, what was the name of that guy in that one Steve Martin movie? The one about the big, dysfunctional family that little Opie Cunningham made? Do you remember? The same actor played the composer guy, too, with the manic case of the giggles." Lorelai frowned as she navigated the streets from their house to the diner. One finger nervously tapped against the steering wheel. "_Amadeus_! That's it! So what's that actor's name, huh?"

Rory squeezed her eyes all the way shut. "Not talking," she decreed.

"What?" Lorelai's head swiveled to regard her offspring. She wasn't equipped to deal with a somber Rory today. She had big things, wow things, going on in her life today, things that were threatening to cause her nerves to actually catapult themselves out of her body entirely, and she needed Rory to be her sharp, wise-cracking self. "We really have to talk, Sweets. No one will recognize us if we don't."

"Mom." Somehow Rory managed to infuse that one word with desperation, a plea, and a threat all at the same time.

"OK, OK." Lorelai felt the gloom settle down into the pit of her stomach, and she shivered under the thin sweater she'd chosen to wear today. She bit down on the edge of her lip, wondering if she should just cancel her plans if she couldn't count on Rory to back her up.

She parked the car as close to the diner as she could get and climbed out, instinctively taking a few moments to straighten the white, gauzy skirt that flowed dreamily down her legs. From the other side of the car she heard a thump, an 'Oof!' and then a string of mild profanities from her daughter. She hustled around the car.

Rory was smacking the car door with her hand as hard as she could. "Crap, crap, crap!" she repeated, heatedly. The door had caught her backpack strap as she'd exited the car, causing the backpack to overturn and dump the majority of its contents onto the curb. "Damn it!" she cried out, rubbing her hand. "The one day I didn't zip the stupid thing up!"

Lorelai quickly opened the door, releasing the strap. She turned the backpack right side-up and started scooping all of the Chilton stuff back inside. "Is your hand OK?" she asked, quietly.

"No," Rory replied, sulkily. "Here, let me do that! You don't know how." She pushed Lorelai aside and started rearranging her papers and books.

"By all means, Your Highness," Lorelai snapped, her nerves no longer allowing her to be magnanimous.

With several snorts of frustration, Rory got all of her necessary school supplies corralled once again. She hoisted it across her shoulders and they started across the street to the welcoming light pouring out of the diner's windows.

Lorelai could feel Rory's gaze traveling up and down her body. She braced for impact.

"Did little woodland creatures dress you this morning?" Rory sniped. "Today's only the first of April, you know. Are you planning on meeting Prince Charming in the meadow for lunch today?"

Lorelai had actually chosen what she was wearing today with great care. The scoop-necked, flowery-embroidered peasant top was smocked at the waist and was a good match for the pale pink cardigan and the flowing, romantic skirt. She had on shoes with a higher than normal heel. She was going to need a little extra height today.

"I wanted to feel like it was spring today," she explained, choosing her words carefully. "It seemed like another dismal day, and I wanted it to be spring. You know, with flowers and birds and little baby bunnies and love in the air." She tried to give Rory her best significant look, but Rory was too busy scowling as she climbed the steps to the diner's door.

"Well, you look kinda silly," Rory sniffed, opening the door.

_Oy with the poodles already_, she thought. She clung to the door frame for a moment, considering abandoning her plans completely. She was beginning to think that there was no way she could pull this off. She needed Rory for this plan to work. She took a breath, felt courage gain ground, and turned to shut the door.

Thankfully when she turned back she saw that Rory was headed for a table instead of places at the counter. Today's agenda demanded that they be at a table. She wasn't concentrating on the big picture. She needed to ditch the nerves and get herself in charge.

She quickly glanced around the dining room, registering everyone who was in attendance. Gypsy, Babette and Patty, of course, and a lot of the other regulars. She nodded to herself, her gaze ending up behind the counter. _Luke_.

He stared at her blankly. Abruptly he turned his back and stalked into the kitchen.

So he wasn't ready. That was OK. Neither was she.

She jumped when Tommy brought them their coffee. She didn't remember even ordering it.

The bells jingled out loudly as Sookie pushed open the door with more force than necessary. Jackson reached around quickly and grabbed it before it could crash into the wall. They hurried over to the girls' table.

"Sorry we're a little late!" Sookie was apparently the only one in town who was still sunny and chipper. "I forgot we were supposed to meet you here this morning and I made us breakfast without thinking! But don't worry about it, we'll just have eggs Benedict for dinner tonight!"

"You got up this morning and already made eggs Benedict?" Even after all of the years Sookie had been Lorelai's friend, her enthusiasm for cooking still flabbergasted her sometimes.

"Yes, but it's fine," Sookie insisted. "I can always whip up some more hollandaise. No problem."

The bells jingled dourly as Michel slunk in and made his way to their table, pain plainly etched on his face.

"Fine. I am here for this ridiculous meeting you have called. I do not, however, partake of diner food." He brushed off the chair before sitting down. "Get on with this silliness so that I can leave before the grease molecules attach themselves to my clothing."

"Mom, you're having a work meeting?" Rory was glowering at her. "Here? It couldn't have waited another 30 minutes when you all would have been at the Inn anyway?"

"Oh, Kitten, this is exciting!" Sookie responded, not fazed by Rory's bad mood. "It's fun to mix it up sometimes!"

"Yeah, fun," Jackson sighed, resting his face on his hand.

"So I propose you get on with it already!" Michel demanded.

Once again Lorelai looked around the diner. More people had entered in the last few minutes and most of the tables were filled. Taylor Doose had just pushed open the door.

She searched for Luke again. This time he met her gaze solidly. He next looked down at the floor, his hands clutching the counter. She saw his shoulders rise and fall as he sighed, deeply. His hands moved to his head and he removed his hat. He sat it on the counter as he eyes again met hers.

That was her cue.

She stood up at once, her chair squealing against the wooden floor as she pushed it backwards. She felt the surprise from Rory and the others at her table. The patrons sitting closest to her stopped whatever they were doing and turned to look at her.

"Luke!" she cried out, taking a step away from the table. "Luke, I can't live like this anymore!" She hugged her arms across her chest and looked at him pleadingly.

He shook his head at her. "We agreed," he said threateningly, pointing a finger at her.

The diner grew eerily quiet. All eyes were on them. Surprisingly, that made her less nervous. She was starting to enjoy herself.

"Please, please, honey. I can't stand us being apart." She was quite proud of the quivering intensity she was able to deliver with that line. She bit down on her lips to stop the triumphant smile from breaking out when she heard the collective gasp from all corners of the room.

"Lorelai, think about what you're doing here!" he warned her.

"I don't care! I don't care anymore!" She sauntered a few steps closer to the counter. "I don't care about anything except for us! All I want is you! I love you, Luke!" Wait. Her brain tripped over itself with that line. Was that what she was supposed to say? Internally she shrugged it off. It flowed. She could work with it.

"I love you, Luke!" she cried out again, throwing her arms out towards him, totally caught up in the vibe their captive audience was giving off. "I can't let another day go by without you!"

"Lorelai." He looked nervous, but that worked for him. He took a moment, contemplating, before he finished his thought. "Are you sure?" he asked gruffly.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" She managed to stop herself before she became Meg Ryan in _When Harry Met Sally._

Luke kept his eyes on her as he started around the counter. She'd tried everything in her power to convince him to leap over it, but he'd nixed that idea at once.

He stopped about a foot away from her. "Then, I'm yours," he said, and she could tell what a great effort it had taken for him to _not_ roll his eyes as he delivered his line.

She smiled at him. Beamed at him, really; she was so pleased at how well he'd played his role. His eyes locked onto hers and she was amazed when one of his rare smiles struggled onto his own lips.

"Oh, Luke," she sighed out, delighted, and no longer acting.

He reached for her, and she reached for him, and suddenly what they were going to do wasn't so funny anymore. She held back for a moment in sudden panic but he was committed and his mouth landed squarely on hers.

_Oh, nice_, she thought, relaxing as her eyes closed and her hands clutched at his back. _Nice lips and a nice mouth, and oh-my-God, did I know about his shoulders?_ She pressed into him more solidly and felt his hands grip her waist a little more insistently. Her mouth parted all on its own and she would have been more than happy to grant him exploration rights, but suddenly she remembered she was supposed to be counting because they'd agreed a count of 10 would be just right, but she had no idea how long they'd been lip-locked. She pushed against him in alarm.

_Guuuuuuh_, her brain commented, as she staggered back about half a foot. She pulled in some air, staring at him. _We really need to do that again_, her body suggested to her.

_Damn right_, she agreed with herself, and grabbed him by the back of the neck. His look of conflict faded as his hand came up to cradle her face, urging her closer.

They'd forgotten they had an audience. An audience who had decided they'd waited long enough without having some input. All at once they were enveloped by the town.

"Oh, you kids! I always knew it'd be like this!" Babette was cackling right beside them, her grin bright and happy.

Miss Patty was right there, too, shaking her head slightly as she regarded them tenderly. "And here, all these years, you thought we were crazy when we tried to push you two together. Well, I'm happy to say I told you so!"

Sookie grabbed Lorelai, babbling incoherently. Jackson shook Luke's hand. More and more people pressed around them.

"Mom." Rory's voice broke through the buzz and everyone stepped aside to make room for her.

Lorelai grinned, exceptionally pleased with her performance, and waited on Rory's critique.

Rory looked away for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts. When she looked back, her eyes were shining. "Mom. This is something I've dreamed about for years. Now that it's finally happening, I just can't believe…I can't believe it's true." Her voice choked off as her lips trembled.

"Rory!" Lorelai laughed nervously, studying her daughter. She couldn't be serious, right?

"Oh, Mom!" Rory rushed to her, throwing her arms about her and hugged her hard. "This makes me so happy! You have no idea!"

"Oh! Well…Good," Lorelai said somewhat hollowly, patting her baby's back.

"And you!" Rory released her mother and threw her arms around Luke. "You've made this practically the happiest day of my life." She rose up on tiptoe and gave him a shy kiss on the cheek. "Welcome to the family," she told him demurely. "I know you'll take good care of her."

Luke's terrified eyes reached out to Lorelai but she could do nothing but stare back at the train wreck before her. "Uh, sure. Of course," he hedged, patting Rory's shoulder, his eyes still begging Lorelai for some help.

Lane pushed through the crowd and gave her a swift hug. "Way to go, Lorelai! I knew you'd cave one day!"

Rory hurried over to her friend. "Did you see, Lane? Did you hear? I'm finally getting my wish!" The girls giggled and squealed and jumped up and down. Then they bent their heads together, whispering, and moved a short distance away.

Taylor and Kirk had boxed Luke in, and by the set of his jaw Lorelai figured he was reaching his limit. She kept nodding her head at her well-wishers, distractedly promising them more details later, while she worriedly tried to follow Rory and further analyze her reaction.

Jess materialized in front of her.

"I've only got one thing to say to you," he said unsmiling. He pitched his voice to a level that would keep the conversation strictly between them. "He's been hung up on you forever. You hurt him, and there's no place on earth where I won't track you down. You got it?"

"Uh…Got it," Lorelai responded, taken aback. She watched as Jess nodded curtly to his uncle and pushed his way out of the restaurant.

Sookie started to clap her hands and Jackson stuck his fingers in his mouth and shrilly whistled, drawing everyone's attention.

"This is all very exciting," Sookie bubbled, her smile gleaming at her friend. "You lovebirds need to go have some alone time now. Don't worry about work. Michel and I will cover it."

"Oh, goody," Michel sniffed.

"So you go be all lovey-dovey! Go! Shoo!" She flapped her hands at them, and a good portion of the crowd joined in with either good wishes or lewd comments. "You can tell me all about it later!" she added, winking at Lorelai.

Lorelai ignored the hubbub and tried to locate her daughter. "Rory?" she called out.

She saw Rory's arm waving close by the front door. "I've got to run to catch the bus, Mom! Fill me in tonight, OK?"

She frowned with anxiety, but then Luke's fingers were digging into the skin right above her elbow.

"Yes, Sweetie Pie," he said, his voice as sarcastic as she'd ever heard, "let's go upstairs and talk, shall we?"

"Oh, Luke, I don't th―" she started, but found herself being propelled towards the curtained opening, tottering on her high heels as she tried to keep up with him.

He urged her briskly up the stairs, his mouth pressed closed tightly in apparent anger. He unlocked the door, pushing it open and motioning for her to enter.

She crossed the room and dropped down on the end of his bed. Keeping her feet level on the floor, she flopped flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Luke shut the door and opened his mouth at the same instant.

"That was _not_ the way that was supposed to go down there! The only reason I agreed to go along with this crazy stunt at all was because you assured me this would be the best way to silence all of the gossips that are constantly watching us! We were supposed to turn around and yell 'April Fool' at everyone! You said it'd keep everyone off our backs! What happened to that plan, huh? I should have known better than to ever listen to you!" he complained. He rubbed his hands over his face in distress. "Why didn't you just stick with the plan?" he beseeched her.

Lorelai sighed and threw an arm over her eyes, trying to block out everything that had gone wrong. "Rory," she groaned out.

"Oh." Luke abruptly sucked in a large portion of his annoyance. "Yeah," he sighed as well, looking down at his feet.

Lorelai struggled up on her elbows so she could see him. "She kissed you," she pointed out. "She welcomed you to the family!"

Luke put his hands on his hips and looked off to the side of the room. "Yeah," he said again, clearly uncomfortable. After a moment one hand came up and rubbed at his cheek.

"I never…" Lorelai trailed off, shaking her head, as she tried to find the words. "It never occurred to me that she wouldn't pick up on the joke. I didn't know…I didn't know that she…" She cleared her throat, very embarrassed at having to say this in front of him. "I didn't know that she was on the 'pro' side of us being a couple."

"You shouldn't have kept her in the dark," Luke groused.

"I thought it would be funnier this way!" Lorelai protested.

"Oh, yeah, this is _really_ funny," Luke mocked. He snorted indignantly and flung his arms towards the floor. "It's so funny that everybody down there thinks that we're up here doing― Well, you know what they all think we're up here doing!"

She found humor as well as a little relief in his extreme discomfort and it managed to knock the worry about Rory from the top spot in her head. "Oh, Luke!" she moaned, hoping to egg him on. She sat up and bounced a few times on the bed. "Oh, yeah, Baby!"

"Stop," he hissed, frozen in place.

"Oooh," she moaned out again, still bouncing. "Oh, yeah. Just like that!"

"Stop it!" he snapped and crossed over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders, trying to pull her up to her feet.

She laughed and started to push up with her legs, giving the illusion that she was going to stand. Instead she grasped his shoulders and fell backwards, taking away his balance and bringing him down with her.

His hands went to either side of her, breaking his fall, but his face was right above hers.

And suddenly the situation wasn't so humorous anymore.

Suddenly all she could think about was the way she'd felt after their fake kiss downstairs. About how much she'd wanted more. And here he was, hovering over her in a position she'd dreamed about more than once. Although usually in her dreams he wasn't glaring at her. Or wearing a shirt.

His angry eyes drifted down to her mouth and what little breath she had left stuck in her throat. Then his eyes closed and she felt the strength in his arms as he leveraged himself off of her. He sat on the side of the bed, looking away from her.

"So do you have a plan to get us out of this?" he grumbled.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, closed her eyes, and took a few moments to find her way back to the carefree Lorelai Land where she normally resided.

"Sure," she said, although she was really making it up as she went along. She sat up, taking care not to come too close to his space. "I think that we just go along with this for awhile."

"_What_?" Luke shouted, shifting around to see her. "Are you completely insane?"

"Just hear me out," she urged him. "We pretend to be a couple for maybe a week or two. We don't have to have a huge public fight or do anything - you know - weird. We just look like we're giving it a chance. And then we say, hey, we tried, but it just didn't work out. We just go back to being friends and no one's the wiser. You know everyone would believe that we couldn't make a relationship work anyway."

Luke shook his head at her. "Just tell Rory the truth. Then we can still have the satisfaction of telling everyone we pulled a joke on them. It'd be all over and done with."

"Luke, please." She twisted her hands together as she pictured her daughter's innocent face. "I admit that this is my fault because I didn't see the possible pitfalls here. But please don't make me disappoint Rory. I didn't do this to hurt her, but I'm afraid that if she learns the truth, that's exactly what she's going to think. Or even if she doesn't think that, she'll still be hurt. Please, Luke. Please help me to make this easier on her."

"Easier on you, you mean," Luke complained, but she could see he was wavering.

"It's Rory," she said softly, playing her ace. "She'll see us trying, and she'll see that we're just better as friends. She'll accept it then, and she won't be hurt or angry. And maybe that will put to rest these unbelievable fantasies she's apparently been harboring about us."

She watched the scowl deepen on his face as he contemplated her words. "I don't want to hurt Rory," he finally muttered.

"Neither do I," she agreed.

He pushed off from the bed and started pacing across the room. "So if I agree to this insanity, can it be over by Saturday night?"

She grinned at that. "I think that Saturday might be a pretty tight deadline―"

"Because I've got a date on Saturday night."

The grin was smacked off her face. She swore a window was open because a chill passed down her back, making her shiver. "You're dating someone?" she asked, her voice much, much sharper than she'd intended.

"Well, I'm going on _a_ date," he hedged.

"Who is she?" Lorelai still couldn't get a handle on the tone of her voice.

"It's, uh, it's Nicole," he revealed, begrudgingly.

"That skinny little bi ― lawyer," Lorelai quickly corrected herself, "is still sniffing around here?"

Luke shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "She was here to see Taylor last week and stopped in for some coffee. We talked for awhile, and she asked if I'd like to have dinner with her sometime."

"So she asked you." Lorelai felt a little relief inexplicably spread through her.

"Yeah, I guess." Luke shrugged again. "For some reason I guess she likes me, even though we don't seem to have much in common. So I thought why not try it, you know?"

"Sure," Lorelai lied. Although she completely agreed that Nicole and Luke were a terrible match, she wasn't as concerned as she might have been since he already seemed to acknowledge that fact. And if she had wanted to, she could have enlightened him as to why Nicole's interest in him hadn't faded, but she thought maybe it was better if he didn't know. "It doesn't hurt to try," she added generously.

Luke looked at her briefly and nodded, and then looked uncomfortable again. "You know I don't date much," he muttered. "I just don't want to mess this up in case it could turn into something real."

Conflicting emotions turned her stomach into a war zone. On one hand, Luke was a good friend and she wanted to see him happy. Really, she did. On the other hand, she'd taken an instant dislike to the little stick-insect litigator the moment she'd met her, and the thought of her being anywhere near Luke was extremely disturbing. But friendship trumped irrational distrust of someone she really didn't know.

She walked over to stand next to him. "I don't want to mess up anything for you either, Luke. Listen, you help me with this backfired joke, and I promise that I'll do everything I can to make sure it doesn't impact on your real life, OK?" She smiled and held out her hand. "Deal?"

He stared at her hand for a moment, and she could tell he was counting up all the ways this could go wrong, but he sighed and gave her hand a brief shake. "Deal," he said in resignation.

"Good." She looked around his small space as she tucked her hair back behind her ears, forgetting momentarily that she hadn't brought anything up here with her. "I'd better be getting to work."

Luke nodded but didn't move. "I think I'll stay up here a little bit longer."

She smiled grimly. "Gonna let me run the gauntlet all by myself down there, huh?"

A small grin creased Luke's face. "Yep," he admitted easily.

Her sunny real smile broke through. "OK, that's fair," she conceded. She moved to open the door and looked back over her shoulder at him. "I'll talk to you later and we can plan out how to work this."

"Peachy," he muttered, but his attempted scowl still looked more like a smile.

"See ya, Doll," she winked, and then set her shoulders resolutely as she started down the stairs to confront what was left of their audience.


	2. What a Tangled Web We Weave

_Go make a sandwich and take a potty break before you start reading, because this is a looooong chapter._

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><p>She wasn't surprised when she heard his boots hitting the stair steps behind her as he rushed to catch up.<p>

"I knew you were too much of a gentleman to throw me to the wolves all by myself," she observed, smugness in her voice.

"I blame my mother," Luke sourly revealed. "She drummed the 'be a gentleman' thing into my head at an early age."

Lorelai stopped in front of the curtain. She half-turned towards him, quirking an eyebrow towards the fabric panel separating them from the diner proper.

With a sigh of exasperation he reached past her and grabbed the cloth, pulling it out of her way.

"Thank you," she said primly, and walked regally into the room.

The dining area had mostly cleared out, as jobs and school and other daily chores had pulled people away from the interesting display they'd put on for the town earlier. One person, however, had sat patiently waiting for them.

"Luke." Kirk sprang up from a chair closest to the table by the curtain. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Can't it wait, Kirk?" Luke pleaded. "I need to get back to the kitchen."

"No, no!" Kirk danced in front of Luke, blocking him. "I really need to tell you this."

Luke shot Lorelai a look that expressed how irritating he found this interruption. "OK, Kirk, fine. What's so important?"

Kirk's eyes glanced at Lorelai but then came back to seriously regard Luke. "While you two are... together, I'm not going to be able to be around you."

"What?" Lorelai laughed. "Kirk, why does that make a difference to you?"

Again, Kirk's gaze swept over her, but he continued to address Luke. "This is just all very awkward for me. I've decided that the best way for me to handle it is to take myself out of the equation. I just wanted you to know why you won't see me for awhile."

"I'll try to manage," Luke muttered, rolling his eyes.

Kirk's face crumpled in on itself. "I'll miss you!" he howled, and threw his arms around Luke.

"Geez, Kirk!" Lorelai had never seen Luke with such a horrified look on his face, and she cemented a hand over her mouth, trying to contain her amusement. He smacked at Kirk's arm as if he was on fire. "Get off me!"

"I'll never forget you, Luke Danes," Kirk intoned solemnly, before turning and stumbling towards the door.

Lorelai watched him go, torn between amusement and sympathy. "Man, Luke, I'm sorry. Didn't realize I was breaking up a relationship."

"Stop," he ordered.

She could no longer contain a giggle or two as they continued walking across the room. "What was that all about?"

"Who knows?" Luke shrugged. "It was Kirk being Kirk."

She glanced at her now-empty table. "Hey, is my purse back there?"

Luke had stepped behind the counter. "Yep." He picked up her bag and handed it to her. His body language was much more relaxed now that he was once again safely in his work-space. "Do you want some breakfast now? You didn't get anything earlier."

Lorelai regretfully shook her head. "I'd better get going. I'll grab something from Sookie at the Inn."

She turned to leave, but was pinned to the spot by Mrs. Slutsky's beady eyes watching their every move. She gulped and her eyes widened as the thought entered her head that Mrs. Slutsky had been left as the sentinel on duty. She slowly turned back to face Luke.

"So I'll talk to you later," she tried to say casually, while attempting to give Luke a significant look that she hoped conveyed the fact that they were being watched.

"OK," he said scowling, a by-product, no doubt, of trying to decipher her facial expression.

She realized that every second she delayed just made this more awkward. Her hand shot out and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him towards her as she leaned over the counter. She closed her eyes against the look of panic on his face and managed to land a quick peck to his lips.

"Bye, Babe!" she cooed, not looking at him, and started to scoot to the door. Some impulse made her pause by Mrs. Slutsky's chair.

"We'll get better at that," she assured the disapproving woman.

"You'd better!" the elderly woman snorted. "Otherwise, why bother?"

_Why indeed_, Lorelai mused as she hastily left the diner.

It didn't take more than a few minutes for the Jeep to travel the distance between the diner and the Independence Inn, and in those few minutes Lorelai thought about the tasks awaiting her at work and how unhappy her empty stomach was. Her unease about how Rory had reacted to her joke was hovering vaguely in the background, but her mind was no longer dwelling on the prank she and Luke had just played.

She parked around the back of the sprawling building and entered through the kitchen, hoping to score some scones and coffee. She wasn't prepared for the whirlwind of joy that snatched her the second she stepped inside.

"You!" Sookie shrieked, as her arms tightened around Lorelai in an impulsive hug. "You need to tell me everything! I mean, everything! You tell me all the dirty details and I'll forgive you for keeping me in the dark!"

"Oh, well, there's not much to tell," Lorelai said weakly, patting Sookie's back.

Sookie stepped back and glared at her. "Not much to tell?" Her hands went to her hips as she snorted with derision. "You told Luke you loved him in front of the whole town! You want me to believe there's no back-story there?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah." Lorelai was blinking rapidly as the consequences of her cover-up landed on her head. "I doubt that Luke would appreciate it if I'd blabbed our intimate moments all over." She tried not to snicker at the idea of her and Luke having 'intimate moments.'

"I'm your best friend," Sookie disputed. "It's in the girlfriend code that I get to hear the down and dirty stuff. You can't expect me to be content with little crumbs, not when you and Luke have finally gotten together. Come on! You owe me!"

Lorelai could feel her eyes bugging out and she swallowed hard. Of course Sookie was going to need to hear how it all happened. She should have thought of that. She should have been making up some stuff on the way over. Man, she was really off her game today. Maybe because she was so hungry.

"I'll make you a deal," she offered. "You ply me with coffee and something to eat, and I'll tell you the stuff that Luke won't kill me for revealing, OK?"

Sookie's face glowed as she beamed at her. She pushed her towards a stool at the worktable as she quickly poured a cup of coffee. "Your cake won't be ready for a couple of hours, but I could make you one of those sausage and egg sandwiches you like."

Lorelai nodded at that suggestion even as her brain pondered the first part of the sentence. "My cake?" she wondered.

"Of course a cake!" Sookie was already grabbing an English muffin and putting a pat of butter into a frying pan. "How many years has it taken for you and Luke to admit that there's always been a thing between you? Of course that calls for a cake! But once it's out of the oven it needs to cool, and I have to make the icing and the ganache, and I haven't quite decided if I'm making a simple syrup to brush over the layers or if I should think about a jam, but of course I'm making you a cake!" She paused just long enough to look over at Lorelai. "Silly!" she chided her.

"Yeah, silly, that's me," Lorelai agreed, grimly. She tucked her head down to guzzle her coffee, glad to break away from Sookie's happy look.

"So tell me everything!" Sookie urged, attacking the refrigerator for the sausage, egg and cheese she needed to make Lorelai's breakfast. "When did this happen?"

"Oh…" Lorelai looked desperately around the kitchen. "Not that long ago."

"So who made the first move?" Sookie asked as her hands formed a sausage patty.

"Oh, well, that would be me, I guess," Lorelai decided.

"Of course," Sookie giggled. "I knew you couldn't resist that sexy stubble forever!"

The hot coffee was doing a good job of making her feel more like herself. "He is cute, isn't he?" she grinned, helping herself to another cup.

Sookie broke an egg into a round metal ring in the frying pan, then tipped her head thoughtfully. "More than cute. I'd say more like handsome. Ruggedly handsome. He just doesn't flaunt it."

"That's for sure," Lorelai agreed. "He is a good kisser," she revealed, slyly, ducking her head down to take another sip.

"OK, that does it! Start talking!" Sookie ordered, pointing the spatula at her like a dagger.

"Well…" Lorelai leaned her elbows onto the table. Now that she'd had a few minutes to compose a story she felt more competent to uphold this ruse. "I went to the diner late a few weeks ago. Luke was cleaning up, and I thought I'd just sit there and bug him like I usually do and maybe help him get rid of the coffee and leftover fries, you know? But the more I sat there and watched him, the more I thought about how it was so sad that he was alone and I was alone, even though we'd always had this sort of a thing between us."

"Oh, yeah." Sookie had stopped moving and was staring at her big-eyed, even though Lorelai thought it smelled like things needed to be flipped on the stove. "You could see it on his face, every time he looked at you."

Lorelai opened her mouth to continue, but Sookie's words erased what she was going to say. "Really? He looked at me…differently?"

"You know that!" Sookie chastised her, automatically turning to tend to the items cooking. "He never looked at you without that look of longing on his face. Well, maybe you didn't see it, because usually you'd be turned away when I'd see it on him. But you could tell he couldn't hide it. Everyone else could see it."

"Really." Lorelai's thoughts screeched to a halt as she poured through years of remembered images of Luke's face, trying to find the truth of what Sookie had observed.

"Yes, really!" Sookie said impatiently as she sliced some sharp cheddar cheese. "Go on!"

"OK." Lorelai's mind jerked back to the present, and she continued to make up her little fairy tale. "Well, I sat there and watched him, and I just said, 'Luke, do you ever think about me?' and he said, 'Yes, I think you're annoying as hell,' and I said, 'I don't mean like that, I mean do you ever think about us being together?'"

"Ooh, brave," Sookie gasped. "What'd he say to that?"

"Well, he just froze, you know? Then he turned to face me, and he was doing that adorable nervous thing he does, and his eyes were opened really wide, and he said that wouldn't be a good idea and I said why not and he said we'd probably break each other's hearts. And I said that was a stupid reason not to try." Lorelai was beginning to think she had a gift for storytelling. "And I could tell that he really wanted to, no matter what he was saying, so I jumped down off the stool and went around the counter. He was backing away and growling at me to stop, but I didn't stop and I grabbed him and kissed him." She sucked in a somewhat shaky breath because she could actually see it happening. She could picture the apprehension in his eyes and she could feel his eagerness breaking through his reserve as he met her in the kiss. She could almost believe it had actually happened.

"Then what?" Sookie asked, mesmerized.

Lorelai smiled secretively as she bent down to her coffee cup. "I told you he's a really good kisser."

"You guys did it behind the _counter_?" Sookie squealed.

Her head sprang back up. "No! Sookie! There was no _doing_ it! No!"

"Well, why not?" Sookie seemed perplexed.

"Because…Because even though we've known each other for years, we barely _really_ know each other," she tried to explain. "You don't just jump into something like this."

"The one time you decide to be sensible," Sookie complained. "So OK, go on. Then what?"

"Well, we, uh, kissed for awhile," Lorelai decided. "And there's definitely things going on under that flannel that we don't know about."

"I bet!" Sookie giggled. "Did he take you upstairs?"

"Um, no. Uh, Jess was up there," Lorelai theorized. "But he took my hand and led me behind the curtain, so I thought we were going up there. We sat on the steps and kissed some more." She could imagine that, since she'd just stood in that spot minutes ago. "I think I still have the imprint of the stair tread imprinted on my butt!"

Sookie giggled again as she snatched the muffin from underneath the broiler and assembled Lorelai's breakfast sandwich. "Go on," she urged, handing her the food.

Lorelai's mouth watered as she looked at the cheese oozing out over the egg. "Well, he started having doubts the longer we sat there. He said that he valued my friendship and he didn't know that he'd be able to keep me as a friend if we tried a relationship and it failed. Both of us got scared. We realized we were risking something huge just to try something that might not pan out. So we agreed that we'd forget that the previous 20 minutes had happened and just go back to the way we'd always been. You know, just friends." She picked up a long strand of melted cheese and popped it in her mouth.

"Aww!" Sookie's face mirrored her disappointment. "So how did you get to this morning, then?"

Lorelai had taken the opportunity to get a bite of the sandwich, and she held up a finger as she quickly chewed, asking for Sookie's patience. "Well, I just kept remembering how nice the kisses were, and I kept wondering if there was a way we could make it work. And then this morning, I don't know, I was watching him, and I thought he looked sad, and it just seemed ridiculous that we were too scared to try something that might be really great. So," Lorelai shrugged, preparing to take another bite, "I went for it."

"Did you ever!" Sookie gloated, approvingly. "And he's OK with it, now?"

Lorelai grinned as she chewed, picturing the resignation on Luke's face as he agreed to go along with her scheme. "He's OK with it," she confirmed.

"Oh, Lorelai, I'm so happy!" Sookie came around the table and nearly choked her with another hug. "I'm so happy for you, and I'm so happy for Luke! Luke's such a nice guy, and he deserves to be with someone who's going to light up his life for him, and that's exactly what you're going to do! He's been wanting this forever, and I'm so glad it's finally coming true for him!"

"Luke is a nice guy," Lorelai agreed, somberly. Sookie's words were making her look at this in a new light, and the egg sandwich suddenly didn't seem quite as appetizing.

"Oh, I'm just thrilled that you two aren't going to be wasting any more time," Sookie said with relief, her shoulders relaxing as she looked at Lorelai seriously. "Just think, if you would have acted on this the first time you thought he was cute, you guys could've gotten together years ago. You'd probably be married and have a couple of kids of your own. He could've been Rory's stepfather and helped you with the house and everything. You probably wouldn't have even needed to go to your parents for money for Chilton, because you would've had Luke instead."

"Um, yeah," Lorelai mumbled, staring unseeing at a future that might have been. For the first time ever she saw that her life could have taken another path and it wouldn't have ended in disaster. She got as far as picturing Luke holding a fuzzy bundle of baby in his strong arms before she was thankful to be sitting down. She was sure that her knees would have been wobbling embarrassingly if she was standing.

"But now it doesn't matter," Sookie continued, joyfully. "You're together now. You've got your chance for happiness! And neither of you will be alone anymore!"

Lorelai swallowed hard as she glanced at her friend's face that was glowing in happiness for her and her lie. "Thanks, Sook," she managed to force out, along with a dim smile.

A timer dinged and Sookie whirled away. "That's the cake!" she revealed, diving for oven mitts.

"I'm gonna take this and head to my office," Lorelai said, picking up the sandwich and coffee as she stood. "I'd better get busy."

"Sure," Sookie said, distractedly, as she pulled out pan after pan of beautiful, golden cake. "I'll give you a buzz when this is ready."

Lorelai largely kept her head down as she trotted down the hall and across the lobby. Michel gave her his usual baleful glare, which she ignored, and she dove into her office. She put down her food and quickly closed and locked her door. She sat down at her desk and pulled the phone towards her, punching in the diner number as fast as she could.

She was relieved when Luke answered the phone himself.

"Hey, it's me," she said softly, glancing at her door. "I just realized that we need to get our stories straight. I've had to make up some stuff to satisfy Sookie, and if you tell somebody a different story, we're going to be busted."

Luke was quiet for a long pause, and she swore she could feel his irritation building over the phone line. "So, have you said anything yet?" she asked, tired of waiting on him to speak.

She could hear a sort of scratching/rustling noise, and realized he was rubbing his forehead, below where his hat rested. "Do you think I have?" he finally asked, irked.

"No," she admitted. "But if someone asks and if you say something that's ―"

"If someone does ask," he cut in, impatiently, "just what do you think I might say?"

"Um…" Her eyes skittered around her tiny office. "Nothing?"

"Bingo!" He sounded smug.

"But Luke, if someone does, and you don't ―"

"Look," he cut her off again, "I'm not sayin' a thing. This is all your doing, OK? You say whatever you want and I'll just go along with it. I don't want to be caught up in this mess any more than I have to be, OK?"

She was grinning at the little mini-rant she was being treated to over the phone. "I can say _anything_ I want?" she asked coyly.

She heard him inhale sharply. "God, no!" he said, quickly. "Don't forget that I have to live with this, too. I know you're perfectly OK with the town knowing every little thing about your life, but that's not the way I am. I expect you to respect that!"

"So you don't want everyone to know all of the fake-details about our fake-love life?" she asked for clarification.

"Yes, exactly!"

"OK," she agreed, "I'll keep the rating family-friendly."

"Lorelai," he growled out in that way he thought sounded threatening, but in actuality always made a delicious little thrill rush though her body.

"I'll be good," she promised. "I'll bring you up to speed later, then."

"Fine," he said, and hung up the phone.

Talking to Luke made her feel infinitely better and she wolfed down what was left of her breakfast sandwich immediately.

The rest of the morning flew by and blended into the early afternoon. Someone had cracked open a window in Room 17 and it was now refusing to be closed at all, which necessitated numerous trips up and down the steps in her high heels. A female guest, apparently separated from Emily Gilmore at birth, claimed that a ring was missing from her room and raised holy hell as she threatened to call the police and moaned about the untrustworthiness of the Independence Inn staff. After several hours of the melodrama, the woman's young daughter returned to the room and calmly opened her mother's makeup case, pulling the ring from its normal hiding place and ending the crisis.

So it had already been an eventful day. When Sookie buzzed her phone and ordered, "Get to the kitchen _now!_" Lorelai automatically assumed the worst. She kicked off her heels and sprinted to the kitchen, grabbing the fire extinguisher from the hall as she passed by.

"I'm here," she said, gasping for breath. She pulled the extinguisher up to her shoulder as she looked around frantically. "What's wrong?"

"Ta-da!" Sookie sang out, waving her arms at a five-layer cake with a flourish. She turned to look at Lorelai and frowned. "What's that for?"

"Nothing, thankfully," Lorelai said with relief. She let the extinguished slide to the floor with a clunk. "Sookie, this is stunning." She stepped closer to better examine the decorative details.

"Sit, sit!" Sookie urged. She grabbed a knife and with surgical precision cut a piece from the bottom layer for Lorelai.

Lorelai sat gratefully and put her stockinged feet up on another chair as she accepted the cake. She attacked it at once, but the texture and flavor was so divine she was forced to pull the fork out of her mouth slowly as she savored it. The cake was light and filled with some sort of whipped cream that seemed to have tiny bits of strawberries incorporated into it, while just a hint of something alcoholic made her mouth tingle.

She had to talk around the bite in her mouth, because she couldn't wait to tell Sookie how good it was. ""My Gaw, Ookie, dis is incre-bule!"

"Glad you like it!" Sookie sat down with her own piece. She'd become an expert over the years at deciphering full-mouth speak.

Lorelai forked up several more blissful bites as her eyes roamed over the fantastical cake sitting before her. "This would make a gorgeous wedding cake," she pointed out.

Sookie put down her piece and leaned over to pat Lorelai's knees in delight. "I can't believe you're already thinking of that!"

Lorelai smiled widely as she licked her fork. "Is there ever a time when a single woman isn't thinking of that?"

"True," Sookie chuckled. "I'm just not used to hearing it from you."

Lorelai was enjoying this break from the demands of the day. It was great having a chance to gossip with Sookie.

"Oh, hey! I forgot to mention this before. Guess who has a date Saturday night?" She grinned with deviousness.

"Who?" Sookie asked, with a fondness in her voice that Lorelai didn't understand.

"Luke!" she revealed with much relish. Luke never dated, so this was a huge news coup.

Sookie smiled coyly. "I'm guessing that means _you_ have a date for Saturday night, too!"

Lorelai was brought up short. She really needed to get her stories straight. She hurriedly stuck another bite of cake in her mouth. "Um, yeah, right," she mumbled. "Of course."

"So where's he taking you for your first date?" Sookie asked eagerly, leaning forward.

"I don't know," she replied, honestly. The cake was no longer tasting as good as it had. "It's a surprise, I guess."

Sookie's dimples broke out as she smiled again at her friend. "That's so romantic! Who ever dreamed that Luke Danes could be romantic, huh?"

"Yeah." Lorelai swirled her fork through what was left of the icing. "Not me."

Sookie settled back against her chair, relaxing. "You know, Lorelai, I have to tell you, I was a little suspicious of this whole you-and-Luke thing this morning. I questioned the timing, because it is April Fool's Day, you know. But I should've known you'd never try to joke around with something this important."

Lorelai choked, and tried to make it sound like a laugh. "Right. Not me. Never," she said, trying to hide the misery in her voice.

Sookie looked heavenward, basking in the sugary goodness of her cake and in the joy of her friend's happy love life. "I'm just _so_ happy for you, Lorelai. You have no idea."

_Neither do you_, Lorelai thought despondently, as she tried to dredge up enough enthusiasm to eat the rest of the cake.

* * *

><p>"Rory?" Lorelai called out as she entered their house that evening. She was later getting home than she'd hoped.<p>

"Kitchen!" Rory yelled back.

Lorelai dropped her purse and shook the heels off her feet. She padded to the kitchen, carrying a box filled with Sookie's cake.

"What did you do?" she asked warmly, as soon as she entered the kitchen. "Did you make dinner?"

"It's just spaghetti and a bagged salad and some garlic bread from the freezer case." Rory tried to act nonchalant, but Lorelai could tell she was proud of her efforts. "I thought you deserved a special meal on this momentous day."

Lorelai was touched and horrified at the same time. "Well, aren't you just the most amazing kid! But you really didn't need to do this," she felt compelled to add.

Rory turned to her abruptly, looking stricken. "Oh, no! Did you and Luke have plans? I'm so stupid! I didn't even think of that!"

"No, no, I'm home with you tonight," Lorelai rushed to assure her. "I just meant that you didn't need to cook dinner for me, that's all."

Rory nodded, but still looked concerned. "But I should start remembering that there are three of us to consider now. It's not just our exclusive girls' club anymore."

"Oh, I don't think things will change all that much," Lorelai said tiredly. She tried to sound more upbeat. "Oh, here! Sookie made me a cake!" She sat down the box and sprang open the lid, displaying one layer of the creation in all its glory.

"Wow." Rory peeked in and swiped her finger through some icing. "So I guess I don't need to ask about Sookie's opinion about you and Luke."

"No, she's pretty happy," Lorelai confirmed, her voice going right back to dejected before she could prevent it.

Rory turned to check the spaghetti. "Why don't you run up and get changed so you don't get tomato sauce all over your pretty outfit?"

"Oh, now you think it's pretty?" Lorelai smirked. "You thought I looked silly this morning."

"I was just in a foul mood this morning," Rory admitted, beginning to drain the pasta. "I was a brat, and I'm sorry I tried to ruin your morning. Now run and get changed!"

It only took a hungry Lorelai a few minutes to skim into jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleecy hoodie to ward off the April chill. She rushed back to the kitchen and set the table as Rory brought over their food.

"I think I've patiently waited long enough," Rory pointed out as she broke off a piece of garlic bread. "You've got to fill me in on you and Luke!"

Lorelai had expected this and had the words really to roll. She basically told Rory the same story she'd fed to Sookie, minus the observations about Luke's physique and the little detail about Jess being upstairs. She was afraid that Rory would pin her down about what night it had been and would be able to figure out if that was true or not.

Lying to multiple people, she observed mentally, was exhausting. She was used to lying only to her parents, and it was much easier to keep track of the lies to them.

"Mom." Rory laid her fork down on her plate and pushed her hair back behind her ears. "I really think this is a great thing. It's wonderful that you and Luke have finally decided to acknowledge that there's always been an attraction between you. It's amazing that it's finally happening!"

"You know, it wasn't that long ago that you told me to not even think about dating Luke," Lorelai pointed out.

Rory nodded, remembering. "I think I was scared about things changing then. There was Chilton, and that was huge, and I couldn't handle thinking about anything else changing. And I knew Luke would be a huge, permanent change. But I've matured since then, Mom, and now I know that I can have a guy in my life and you can, too, and it won't change us. What we have together is never going to change, no matter who else we share our lives with. And I know that Luke is the guy for you, so this is very, very good."

Lorelai's mouth felt stuck together and she wiped her lips with her napkin nervously. "Kid, this thing with Luke…It's really new, you know? There's no guarantee it's going to stick."

Rory leaned back in her chair and actually laughed at her. "Are you kidding? Of course it's going to stick! Both of you have been waiting for this forever!"

Lorelai stared down at her silverware and decided to test the waters. "I don't want you to be too invested in this yet, Rory. I don't want you to be hurt if Luke and I decide that we're really just friends."

"Not going to happen," Rory said dismissively. "You guys have always been heading towards this."

"We'll see," Lorelai said, with a thin smile.

Rory leaned forward eagerly. "And you should tell Grandma and Grandpa right away."

Lorelai's mouth fell open and she struggled to find words. "Absolutely not!" she finally forced out, in absolute horror.

"Mom, you do this every time," Rory explained patiently. "Every time something good happens, you don't want them to know, and then when they do find it out, it's too late for them to be happy for you, and then you get your feelings hurt. This is the biggest, happiest thing to ever happen to you, and I don't want anything to go wrong and ruin it for you. You need to let them know right away."

"Rory…" she started, shaking her head. That was the absolutely worst idea she'd ever heard. Next to pretending to be in love with Luke Danes as a April Fool's prank, anyway.

Rory sighed. "Look, I know that you and Grandma don't have a relationship like you and I do, but she's still your mom, and you're still her daughter. Can't you imagine what it feels like to her, to be constantly kept in the dark? Don't you remember how bad you felt when I didn't tell you the stuff about Dean right away? Come on, Mom, you've got to understand how that makes Grandma feel, because you've experienced it yourself. Just try, please? I really don't want anything to derail you and Luke, and that includes Grandma's hurt feelings. Try being honest with her for once."

Lorelai felt her mouth opening and closing as she tried to refute Rory's logic that being honest with her mother about a lie she was telling everyone else was somehow going to help anything at all. She could feel her brain hurting as she tried to keep it all straight.

"I'll tell the grandparents when the time is right," she finally found the strength to say firmly. "You're probably right; keeping things from them never works. I will tell them; I promise. Just let me at least have a real date first, OK? Let me get the relationship actually rolling before I tell them that there is one, OK?"

Rory seriously considered her mother's words. "OK," she grumbled, "but don't wait too long."

"Just long enough," Lorelai muttered under her breath. Just long enough that they could pretend to break up and then there wouldn't be anything to tell.

As soon as they finished eating, Rory started to clear the table. "I've got this," she assured her mother. "You get ready to go see Luke."

Lorelai looked at her curiously. "I'm not going to go see Luke."

"Of course you are," Rory disagreed. "I've monopolized your time enough. I'm sure he's watching the door, waiting for you to come in right now."

"I'd rather just stay home with you," Lorelai said, sounding cranky.

Rory flashed a smile at her, apparently assuming that she was being funny. "You've spent plenty of time with me, and I'm sure your beau misses you. I'm going to study anyway for the rest of the night, and I'd appreciate a quiet house. So off you go, missy!"

"Fine," Lorelai sighed, seeing that Rory wasn't giving in. She went to find some shoes and to grab a jacket.

"Brush your teeth first!" Rory called out from the kitchen. "You probably reek of garlic. In fact, use mouthwash, too!"

"Yeah, yeah," Lorelai grumbled. She slunk out of the house, wondering where she could go hide out for an hour or so.

Babette was shaking out a rug in front of her house and spotted Lorelai passing by. "There she is! There's our own ― Hey, Lorelai, what's that actress's name that got Warren Beatty?"

Lorelai walked across the yard to Babette. "Annette Benning?" she offered.

"Yeah!" Babette nodded her head vigorously. "That's who you are. You managed to catch Stars Hollow's Warren Beatty."

Lorelai laughed. "What would make you compare Luke to Warren Beatty?" she asked, thinking of the star's womanizing ways.

"Well, he's handsome as all get-out, and he's a real catch, and no one's been able to reel him in for years. But you did! Now the trick is to make sure he doesn't get loose again," Babette advised. "But look at you! Look who I'm talkin' to! There's no chance he'll want to get loose from you, not after waitin' all these years!"

"Now, Babette," Lorelai chided her, uneasy again as one more person reminded her that Luke might possibly really have feelings for her.

Babette patted her hand. "I bet you're goin' to see him now, ain't ya? Well, ya give 'im one from me, ya hear? Nothin' better than that new relationship fire!"

"Sure, Babette," Lorelai capitulated, once again starting her slow walk to town.

She strolled down Main Street, wondering if she could sit in the back of Black & White & Read and watch a movie for a little bit. She tried to remember when the library closed. She perused the customers still sitting inside Weston's, but found herself wandering further down the street, being drawn to the diner whether she wanted to be or not.

"Lorelai!" Miss Patty had spotted her.

"Hi, Patty." Lorelai walked over to the dance studio's steps.

"Sweetheart, I've been on the lookout for you all day," Patty told her. "What a shock you gave us all this morning!"

"Yeah, it was a surprise all right," Lorelai agreed, half-heartedly.

"Well, I wouldn't say it was a surprise that you two have the hots for each other," Patty chuckled knowingly. "But I never would have believed Luke would declare himself taken out in public like that. You must have some real tricks up your sleeve to make him act like that. Someday, you must fill me in!"

"Oh, Patty," Lorelai began, once again extremely uncomfortable, "that's not―"

"I know you'll never tell the details," Patty interrupted her. "But you are one lucky, lucky girl!" Her leering look faded. "Seriously, though, I'm so happy for Luke. I know he's wanted a home and a family for years, and I was afraid that he'd gotten so burned after Rachel that he'd never go after what he really wanted. I'm so glad that he's finally getting it with you."

Lorelai threw her a sharp look, thinking that it was just more of her usual innuendo, but she could see the sincerity on Patty's face. "You think Luke wants a family?" she heard herself asking.

"Of course he does, Sweetheart," Patty assured her. "That's what he's always wanted with you."

"With me?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Lorelai, for such a sharp cookie, you can sure be dense sometimes. Of course with you! He's always wanted you!" Patty gave her a gentle nudge. "You'd better get over there to him. He's probably pacing a hole in the floor, waiting on you! Go to the poor boy!"

Lorelai smiled weakly, and with Patty watching her, she had no choice but to head over to the diner.

Caesar was behind the counter and she walked up and sat down on a stool. "Is Luke around?" she asked.

Caesar gave her a knowing grin. "He's upstairs. I guess I know now why he wanted me to close tonight." He leaned over the counter, grasping her hands warmly. "I'm sorry I missed all of the excitement this morning, but I know you and the Boss are going to be so happy together! Congratulations!"

"Thanks, Caesar," she responded, no longer trying to fight it. "I'll just go on up, then."

She went slowly up the stairs and deciding she had no other alternative, knocked on Luke's door.

"Who is it?" His voice sounded suspicious.

"Your girlfriend," she replied.

The door opened and he stood there, scowling at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Honey, it's great to see you, too," she responded with sarcasm. "Rory threw me out, and the whole town thinks I should be with you. So here I am."

He sighed with great feeling. "It's late," he pointed out.

"It's not that late," she refuted. "Hey, where's that gentleman thing you're known for? Aren't you going to ask me in?"

"Come in," he griped, holding open the door.

She stepped inside and then froze. "Is Jess here?" she asked, suddenly afraid she'd blown everything.

"No, he's at work until 10, and it usually takes another hour before he gets home."

"Oh, that's good," Lorelai said with relief. She shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair.

Luke flailed his arms around the small space. "You really can't stay here that long. Isn't there someplace else you could go?"

Lorelai looked at him sharply. "Man, that gentleman thing really comes and goes, doesn't it? What's the big deal with my being here? Can't I just sit and watch TV with you or whatever else it is you're doing?"

A sly smile teased his mouth as a devilish glint warmed his blue eyes. "I'm afraid I'm too much of a gentleman to invite you to join me in what I was planning to do."

"Why? What's that?" she snapped.

"Going to bed," he explained, trying to look innocent.

A laugh burst out of Lorelai and a fine, delicious flare of something that could have been mistaken for desire burned through her in an instant. Except for one comment about not sitting on cold benches, she couldn't remember Luke ever saying anything with a sexual connotation to it. She looked at him appraisingly, suddenly seeing more Warren Beatty than she ever would have thought.

"Well, Grandpa, how about you put off your bedtime for say, another 45 minutes, and we find another way to entertain ourselves?" She grinned at him. "We need to make a plan for Operation Romance anyway."

"Fine," he acquiesced, motioning for her to have a seat. He trudged to his refrigerator and searched inside. "I can offer you water or apple juice. Take your pick."

"Apple juice," Lorelai decided, settling on the couch. "Very clever, by the way, only offering me healthy options. I'm on to you."

"Yes, my deviousness knows no bounds." Luke handed her a glass as he sprawled on the other end of the sofa. "Or it could be that I have nothing else in the house. There's a teenage boy living here, you know."

"True," Lorelai conceded. "So, let me bring you up to speed on our burgeoning romance."

"If you must."

"OK." Lorelai put down the juice and swiveled back into the corner of the couch, drawing up one leg so that she was facing him. "Well, Sookie wanted to know how it started, so I said that I was in the diner late one night, and I thought you looked lonely and I was lonely, so I broached the topic of you and me, and even though you tried to talk me out of it, I went behind the counter and―"

"Why would you say that?" Luke broke in, agitated.

"Huh?"

"Why is it you making a move on me?"

"Because it's my story and because I thought that was more believable. You're kind of a passive guy," she grinned at him. "Very go-with-the-flow."

His mouth dropped open. "You think I'm _passive_?" he asked incredulously, his voice raising.

"Yeah," she nodded. "If you're not ranting or being all sarcastic, I think you're actually kinda shy."

"You think I'm _shy_?" he roared out.

"Yeah," she agreed again, not bothered by his roar. "Who asked who out for your date on Saturday night?"

That took him down a few pegs. "That doesn't mean anything," he muttered.

"Look, it's just a _story_," she emphasized. "I had to start somewhere, and I didn't have time to do much planning. I'm sorry if I'm damaging your tender male ego, but I said I started it, so it's too late now to change it. The next time we lie to the whole town, you can create the details, OK?"

He folded his arms across his chest, still looking disturbed. "Go on."

Lorelai flipped her hair back behind her ears and began the story again. "OK. So we kissed a few times behind the counter and then we went and sat on the stairs and kissed some more―"

"On the stairs?" he interrupted again, this time his voice laced with amusement.

"Yes," she blustered, suddenly realizing that Luke wasn't the only one battling the shyness thing. Talking about them kissing was more nerve-wracking than she would have thought.

"Why would we make-out on the stairs?" He was all but laughing at her now.

"Because …" She looked away momentarily, rubbing her palms on her jeans. "Because I figured that we wouldn't want to stay in the diner, in full view of anybody walking by, and I didn't think we'd come up here, because Jess was probably up here."

"There's always the store room," Luke said easily.

Something about the way he said that made her throat close up. "I'll remember that for next time," she choked out.

"So we're on the stairs," he prodded her to continue.

"And both of us get cold feet. We decide it's better to just stay friends." She looked at him, and he gave her a brief nod of agreement. "Until this morning, when I got the urge to forget the friend thing and go for broke."

He looked at her sharply. "And?"

She shrugged. "And what? You were there for everything this morning."

"Really?" he challenged her. "That's all you told Sookie?" he said, rather mockingly.

"Yeah," she insisted.

He searched her face. "Huh," he said, sounding surprised.

"What?"

He shrugged. "I'm just shocked that you'd make up something so tame. With your dirty mind I was expecting more _Playboy._ Not romance novel stuff."

She shifted uncomfortably again. "I'm not trying to embarrass you," she said rather sullenly, reaching for her apple juice.

"OK," he said, thinking it over. "Well, thanks."

"You're welcome." She took another sip of the juice and thought about how this was all so strange and yet felt so familiar. It was definitely weird, sitting here in Luke's private space, seeing him hatless and without the flannel buttoned over his gray t-shirt and nothing but socks on his feet. Weirdly intimate and unnerving. But yet it felt so comfortable too, being with him and doing their normal bantering. The dichotomy was throwing her off.

"So, listen," she sighed. "We need to talk about Saturday night."

"No, we don't," he said curtly.

"Yeah, we do." She was feeling the nerves again. "I sort of…accidentally…mentioned to Sookie that you had a date Saturday night."

His eyes pinned her in place. "You did what?"

"Well, we were gossiping, and I kinda forgot about the pretend thing with us, and I said that you were going out." When he didn't say anything but continued only to glare, she rushed on. "Of course Sookie immediately thought I meant that we were going out, and I couldn't take it back. And Sookie might not tell many people, but I'm sure she told Jackson, so that means probably everyone knows it now, because that guy _cannot_ keep a secret."

"I'm not cancelling with Nicole," he said firmly. "And just for future reference, there will never be any mention of me during your gossiping. Ever. You clear on that?"

"I don't want you to cancel with Nicole," Lorelai soothed him, lying. She wanted him to cancel with Nicole more than anything. She conveniently skipped right over his decree not to gossip about him, because, yeah, like that was going to happen. "We just need to figure out a way to make it work."

"How?" he asked, crossly. "If Jackson's spread the word, you know Babette and half the town's going to be watching your house Saturday night. There's no way I can sneak out and pick up Nicole."

Lorelai drummed her fingers against her knee, trying to think. "So where's Nicole live?"

"Why?" Luke asked, instantly distrustful.

"I'm not going to stalk her or key her car or anything. I'm just trying to come up with a plan."

He sighed, giving up. "Litchfield," he revealed.

"OK," she nodded, planning. "Litchfield." She frowned, looking off in the distance as she plotted. "OK, here's what we'll do. You come pick me up a little early, and we'll put on a show for whoever's watching."

"Lorelai," Luke warned.

"No, it's good." She was warming up to the plan now. "I'll ride over to Litchfield with you, and I'll find some restaurant where I can hole up while you have your date. Then you take Nicole home, pick me up, we come back here and no one's the wiser. It can work," she summed up, relieved.

"Lorelai," he said again, shaking his head.

"The only thing is, you can't get lucky," she grinned deviously at him, waggling her eyebrows. "Or if you do, let me know, and I'll take a cab home. Although I don't know what sort of alarms that would set off, me coming home alone in a cab!"

"Lorelai!" he thundered. When she stopped and looked at him, waiting, his irritation seemed to disappear. "That might work," he conceded.

"What time are you supposed to pick her up?"

"7:30."

"Then you pick me up at 6:30, and I'll find someplace in Litchfield where I can kill a few hours. See?" She leaned over and patted his leg. "I told you I wouldn't let this interfere with your real life."

"Oh, no. No, this isn't interfering with my life at all." He looked up at ceiling, apparently looking for strength.

"Good. Now that's settled, let's watch some TV." Lorelai took a gulp of her juice and then settled comfortably back into the couch.

Luke sighed but picked up the remote. He lingered over each sports channel, prompting Lorelai to make an annoying buzzer noise to indicate her displeasure. He reached the movie channels and surfed through them quickly.

"Wait! Wait, go back!"

"What? This?" His finger punched the down button.

"Yes!" She pointed at the screen in triumph. "I was just talking about this movie this morning with Rory. I can't believe it's on tonight. It's so weird when coincidences like that happen."

"So what is it?" Luke asked, after they'd watched for a few moments.

"It's _Parenthood_. Steve Martin's in it, and Mary Steenburgen, and the nerdy guy from _Ghostbusters_. A really young Keanu Reeves. And the one guy ― him ― whose name I still can't remember," she complained, pointing. "I'll have to look it up later, I guess."

They watched the action on the screen for some minutes, Lorelai grinning as she was pulled into the story, Luke fidgeting as he tried to tolerate it.

"I hate crap like this!" he finally burst out, having reached his limit. "I hate stuff where they throw dozens of people at you and you're supposed to figure out who everybody is and what they're talking about. And it's completely unbelievable! What kind of a family gets together like this all the time, and everybody knows everybody else's business? It's completely unrealistic!"

"Hence this being a _moo-vie_," she enunciated slowly. But then she smiled at him. "That's why I love it. This is exactly the type of family I wish I'd had."

"You'd want to live in this craziness?" he disputed.

"Oh, yeah," she said eagerly. "Having brothers and sisters and mass confusion to take the heat off of me? That's exactly what I wanted. I grew up in this sterile, quiet environment, where coming to dinner with your shoes off was treated like one of the seven deadly sins. I would have loved to grow up in a household like that." She nodded towards the screen.

"These people would drive you crazy in a heartbeat," Luke argued. "Trust me. I've got a sister, and five minutes in a room with her makes me want to look around for a cyanide capsule."

"But at least you've got a sister," Lorelai pointed out. "Come on, Luke. Isn't it nice to know that you've got one person in the world who understands where you're coming from? One person who shares your point of view?"

Luke snorted. "No one shares Liz's point of view. She's as flaky as they come."

"But still, she grew up with you. The two of you and your parents were this unit. You can't convince me it's not nice to have someone else who automatically shares this connection and knows stuff that no one else does."

He glanced over at her. "Maybe," he acknowledged. He watched the screen, where the parents were frantically searching for their son's retainer. He shook his head and looked back at her. "You've got that with Rory, you know."

"Sure, now," she agreed. "But she doesn't really understand what it was like for me growing up. She knows my parents as her doting grandparents, and even though she knows my stories, she doesn't really know what it was like growing up in that house."

They watched the movie in silence until Luke commented again. "This is really your ideal family?"

Lorelai laughed. "Well, maybe not ideal. But it looks like fun. And certainly not dull!"

"So you didn't like being an only child," he theorized.

"No," she immediately agreed.

"But yet Rory's an only child," he observed.

"True." Now she found herself fidgeting. "It's not like there was much I could do about that."

"Oh?" Luke gave her a sideways glance.

She spread her hands out as she tried to explain. "There was just always so much to do. I was raising her alone, Luke, and I couldn't relinquish that, not even for a moment. And money…Well, there was never enough money. And time just goes by so fast." She shrugged. "And I guess I learned my lesson. I knew that if it ever happened again, I wanted it with a partner who was committed to me and to our child. And that just…didn't happen."

"It still could," he pointed out.

"Maybe."

He glanced over at her and looked away, forcing himself back to the action on the screen. She could tell he was fighting the urge to say something.

"What?" she nudged him.

He shrugged. "Just wondering if you wanted another kid."

About a half-dozen quips sprang to her mind, but she noted the serious set to Luke's jaw and for once decided to ignore her joking impulse.

"There was a time, probably when Rory was 8 or 9. I know it was before we moved to the house," she began, slowly. "I was checking this couple out, and their little girl came running up and the mom scooped her up and held her on her hip." She paused and took a breath, chancing another glance at him. She wasn't used to doing the serious thing with him. "I know you don't know much about kids, but there's this whole long period of time where that's how you hold 'em. You're just constantly lugging 'em around, attached to your hip. And for some reason, on that day, even though I hadn't carried Rory like that for years, seeing that mom and that little girl devastated me. I had to excuse myself and go to the linen closet and cry for awhile. I'd been so busy raising her that I hadn't realized how big she'd gotten. I hadn't realized how fast the time had rushed by. I hadn't realized that there was this giant pool of yearning inside me, just dying to hold a kid ― my kid ― like that again." She twisted her hands together as she swallowed, and forced herself to meet his eyes. "So yeah, I'd like to have another baby someday."

His eyes were sympathetic, and warm, and boring into hers. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice husky and sincere.

She wasn't sure what he was apologizing for and she didn't care. She loved the way he was looking at her and she loved the tone of his voice. She cautiously gave him a tiny nod and a gentle smile, not wanting to break the fragile, fraught mood between them.

"I think," she heard herself say, and she let her subconscious take over whatever it was that was going to come out, because she was too busy staring into his eyes, "I think that my biggest regret with ending things with Max was that it meant losing the chance to have a baby. I mean, that's what people do, right? Get married and start a family?"

The mention of Max broke their connection. Luke turned back to the screen abruptly. "I guess," he shrugged, his voice locked down.

She drew in a deep breath, feeling a little shaky. She wasn't sure what had just passed between them, but she wanted it back. Her mind replayed her conversation with Patty concerning Luke and his longing for a family.

"So how about you?" she asked. "Do you ever think about having a family someday?"

"Yeah, I guess," he said, his voice sounding deliberately casual. "I mean, doesn't everyone?"

"Sure," she agreed, wishing he'd look at her again. "For the record, I think you'd make a really good dad."

He did cast an appraising look her way. "Thanks," he said, his shoulders twitching in another self-deprecating shrug. "I had a good example, anyway." He sighed, then, staring at the screen. "Although you couldn't tell it, from the way I'm handling Jess."

"Jess isn't a fair example," she disputed, loyally. "He's practically finished. It's like ― it's like when you make pancakes," she rushed on. "Now I don't know exactly how you make pancakes, but I figure you have to put flour and eggs and stuff together in a bowl, and if the eggs and flour aren't right, you can't expect the pancakes to turn out right either, can you? I mean, you can cook them perfectly, and add really good syrup, but the pancakes themselves are going to be flawed, right? And that's how it is with Jess. You're trying to help him by dumping good syrup over him, and maybe that'll help, but he's got a lot of bad ingredients to get over first."

Luke scowled at her, but then the message in her words apparently broke through the defensive shell he kept wrapped around him concerning Jess. His face lost the troubled look and he nodded at her.

"Thanks," he said again, simply.

"Maybe…Maybe Nicole will be it for you," she forced herself to say. "Maybe she wants a family, too."

They stared at each other for a moment. Luke cracked first and a glorious smile washed over his face. She smiled back happily.

"Nah!" they both said, at the same time, and she started to giggle, and even Luke had to laugh as they pictured Nicole dealing with a sticky toddler. Their shoulders rubbed together as they sank weakly back against the couch, laughing hard.

The movie broke away to a commercial and the volume seemed to increase tenfold. Luke grabbed for the remote to turn it down.

Lorelai glanced at the clock. "I think it might be safe for me to head home. I think we've had a plausible amount of 'alone' time, don't you? And besides, I want to get out of here before Jess comes home."

She stood up and went to grab her coat. Luke followed her to the door, his hands in his back pockets.

She had her hand on the doorknob when she turned back to him. "There's just one other thing," she said hesitantly.

"What?" he asked, resigned to the fact that there was always going to be _one more thing_.

"We're going to have to have some…" She waved her hand between them. "Touching." she finally summed up. "No one's going to buy us as a couple if we don't look like we like each other."

"Lorelai ―"

"It doesn't have to be a lot," she insisted. "We just need to have enough that it looks natural. We just need to get used to it."

She looked at him beseechingly, but he stood his ground, stony-faced.

Realizing it was up to her, she closed the gap between them and went up to her tip-toes to reach his mouth. She pressed her lips against his and waited. He didn't respond, but he didn't shy away, either. After a few seconds she gave his bottom lip a sassy tug and then stepped away, waiting for his reaction.

He crossed his arms across his chest as he tentatively tasted his lips. "So, did you deliberately suck on a clove of garlic before you came over here just for my benefit, or were you taking precautions against the herd of vampires known to lurk around the gazebo?"

Lorelai gave a happy laugh. "See you tomorrow, Lover!" she called, rushing to the stairs.

"God help me," she heard Luke mutter as he closed his door, and that made her laugh again.

* * *

><p>It was Friday night, and Lorelai had assumed her usual position, huddled into a corner of her parents' couch, sucking down a martini as fast as was deemed polite. In other parts of the room, Rory and her parents were holding their weekly mutual admiration society conversation. She was letting her father's heavy hand with the gin lull her into a peaceful, Zen-like state as she contemplated the events of the day.<p>

Operation Romance had been remarkably easy to pull off today. The townsfolk who had wanted to talk to her about it mostly wanted to offer their congratulations or to say they'd always suspected there was something between them. Very few asked for any details. For her part, Lorelai learned that pretending to be Luke's girlfriend differed little from her normal behavior at the diner. She discovered that her usual form of bantering with him could pass for flirting easily. All she had to do was to pat his hand a few times or give him a wink, and Babette and Miss Patty nudged each other and beamed with delight. It hadn't been a stretch at all.

She'd been into the diner three times that day. The first time, at breakfast, she deliberately stepped around behind the counter and gave him a quick kiss, ignoring his scowl. The second time, at lunch, he met her at the end of the counter and stood there in resignation as she pecked at his lips. The third time was to pick up coffee to give strength to her and Rory before they headed out to Hartford.

That Pavlov guy apparently knew what he was talking about. She'd stopped next to where Luke was clearing off a table and he automatically straightened, looping an arm around her neck. He'd pulled her closer and gave her lips a sweet kiss. Definitely not just a peck. Then his eyes opened wide and he'd instantly let her go, his cheeks reddening under the stubble.

"Thanks, Babe," she cooed at him, trying her best to ignore the tingle lingering on her mouth. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Drive safe," he finally muttered, when she was nearly to the door.

Just thinking about it now made a huge, pleased smile break over her face and she closed her eyes, replaying it yet again in her head. This whole thing might turn out to be more fun than what she'd thought.

"Well, Lorelai, why don't you lose that ridiculous smirk on your face and tell us your news?" Emily's demanding voice cut through her enjoyable thoughts.

"What?" Lorelai was unpleasantly pulled back into the present.

Rory's stricken face turned to her. "I told Grandma and Grandpa that you had some big news to tell them."

"I…" Lorelai looked at her mother, then back at her visibly worried daughter. "No I don't," she said, confused.

Rory took a deep breath and her shoulders straightened with resolve. "Mom has a new man in her life."

"Rory!" Lorelai screeched. Her arms flailed as she tried to extricate herself from the couch, and what little was left of the martini sloshed onto her skirt.

"Honestly, Lorelai!" Emily stalked over to the drink cart and picked up several cocktail napkins. She brought them over and handed them to Lorelai.

"Mom's worried about telling you," Rory continued desperately. "They're just starting out and she's worried that it's too soon to tell you, but this guy is perfect. He's really great, and I know this time is going to be different, and I don't want you guys to be in the dark when there's something this big going on in our lives."

Lorelai could feel the cool liquid soaking through to her legs, but she was frozen in place. She could only stare at this child ― her child, her angel, her perfect daughter ― as she stabbed her in the back.

"I … I …" It was all she could get out. Her lungs had forgotten how to breathe and her brain had forgotten how to form words. She couldn't believe that Rory could betray her like this.

"So who is he?" Emily asked tauntingly. "Who is this perfect man?"

Rory's eyes were locked onto her mother's, apparently begging for forgiveness. They shifted to her grandmother. "It's Luke, Grandma. Luke Danes."

Air rushed back into Lorelai's chest as she saw her life ending. "Oh, God."

"Luke Danes?" Her father sat up and paid attention. "Isn't that the man who runs the diner? The one who brought you to the hospital when I had my angina attack?"

"Yes, Grandpa, that's Luke," Rory confirmed.

"Well, Lorelai," Richard boomed out, "that might be just the thing, then. I've always said that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he reacts during an emergency. Your mother told me several times what a comfort he was to her during that night. And the two of you have been friends for a long time, I believe, and there's no firmer ground to base a relationship on than friendship. He owns his own business, too, I gather?"

"Yes, he does," Rory chimed in again.

"Excellent!" Richard rubbed his hands together. "Lorelai, I'm inclined to agree with Rory's judgment on this matter! This may just be the man for you!"

"He … I …" Lorelai couldn't seem to make her eyes stop blinking as she turned from her daughter to her father, desperately searching for the words that might end this conversation.

Emily had been pacing from the drink cart to the sofa as Richard had his say. Now she whirled to confront Lorelai.

"I know why you didn't want to tell me!" she declared. "I know exactly why you wouldn't give me the satisfaction of telling me about the two of you! You wanted to deny me the chance to say 'I told you so!'"

"What?' Lorelai said weakly.

Her mother came to stand before her, glaring down at her in triumph. "I'm the one who pointed out to you years ago that the man was crazy about you. I'm the one who told you that you appreciated hearing that he liked you! You'd rather sit on this news now rather than admit that I was right all along!"

"Mom, no, that's not ―"

"No, Grandma!" Rory cut in. "Really, believe me, that's not it. They haven't even been out on a real date yet, and Mom was worried about telling you too soon, before they've had a chance to adjust to it yet. But this is such a good thing. Luke means so much, to both of us, and I don't want anything to ruin this for them. That's why I wanted to tell you now. Please be happy for us. This is _such_ a good thing." Rory looked pleadingly at her grandparents.

Silence settled down over the room and Lorelai gulped and scrubbed belatedly at her skirt with the napkins.

"Well, Rory, we'll certainly believe you, since it apparently means so much to you. Obviously Luke has a big place in your life," Richard observed.

"Yes, he does. In both of our lives," Rory said, her voice quavering a little bit.

Lorelai bit her lips and wanted to die.

"I want him to come to dinner."

"What?" Lorelai looked askance at her mother, who was standing before her in her best indomitable posture.

"He should come to dinner. If he's as important as you say, he needs to be a part of our lives, too. We'll expect him here next Friday."

"Mom, no. That's not…I don't know if that's possible." It was hard for Lorelai to come up with an excuse, since there was so much shrieking going on inside of her head. "He runs the diner, you know, and it's hard for him to get away much. He'd have to completely change his schedule to come here next week."

"He's the owner. I'm sure he can make it work." Emily waved dismissively at the maid who'd just stepped into the room to summon them to dinner. "Unless you're saying that he thinks it's not important to meet his girlfriend's family." She leveled a suspicious look at Lorelai. "Or you don't think we're _worthy_ enough to be around him."

"No, that's, that's…" Lorelai gave up. Her brain had given up and she just couldn't deal with this. She sighed. "I'm sure he'd love to come next Friday night."

"Good," Emily nodded, graciously accepting her win. She and Richard headed for the dining room.

The girls hung back a few paces, once Lorelai had struggled up to her feet.

"Are you mad at me?" Rory asked meekly.

Lorelai blinked at her traitorous offspring. "I'm not mad, exactly," she mumbled, hanging onto Rory as they navigated the hall. "I think I'm just numb. You may have to cut my meat for me tonight. I probably shouldn't be trusted with a knife."

"I'm sorry," Rory whispered. "I just really don't want anything to ruin this for you, and that includes any scheme that Grandma might hatch in spitefulness for being kept in the dark. I'm trying to look out for you, Mom."

Lorelai looked at her daughter's beautiful, concerned face. "I know you are, Sweets," she admitted, and gave her a hug across her shoulders. Rory's face relaxed and she hugged her back.

They sat down at the table, where Lorelai spent the entire meal trying to figure out how she could possibly tell Luke he was going to have to come to Hartford with them next Friday night.


	3. Double Date Night

"Damn it!" Lorelai hissed, failing for the third time to twist her curls up onto her head. One long, dark tendril had again missed the teeth of the clip she was using and swung from behind her ear down to her shoulder.

"You know what? Fine! Just stay that way!" she grumbled. She had other concerns to tend to. She grabbed a dark blue pencil and lined her eyes as fast as she could.

Up until ten minutes ago she'd been ready. She'd had on nice but unspectacular black slacks and a perfectly decent turquoise sweater. She'd plopped down at her dressing table to quickly repair the damage a full Saturday of running errands had done to her makeup when the eerie thought crossed her mind that Nicole was probably doing the same thing, getting ready for her date with Luke.

She knew she wasn't in competition with Nicole. She certainly wasn't fighting her for Luke. Their situations tonight couldn't be further apart. But all the same…She'd be damned if that anorexic attorney was going to come off looking better than she was.

Half of her closet got tossed until her hands landed on a soft jersey dress, midnight blue and predisposed to cling to her best spots. She indulged in her favorite pair of high spiky heels, knowing that as tall as Luke was, she could wear them easily.

Of course, not that that would actually matter, she conceded, because he wouldn't be with her, anyway. He'd be with Nicole. She needed to remember that.

She heard the knock at the door and she swooped the brush filled with rosy blush over her cheekbones. She heard Rory open the door, and then her ears strained to try and make out the conversation between her and Luke.

She opened her jewelry box and lifted out her one piece of real jewelry, the simple square-cut diamond on a silver chain given to her by her Aunt Hope on her fifteenth birthday. She loved it not only because of the provenance that came with it; she loved it because it suited her so well. Into her ears she poked some sparkly chandeliers that she'd found on the clearance rack at Target. She moved her head back and forth, watching them skim her jaw and twinkle from the overhead light.

Rory bounded into the room. "You about ready?"

"Almost." Lorelai rubbed some tinted gloss over her lips.

"He looks good," Rory told her. She came to stand behind her mother, judging her appearance. She gave her a nod of approval.

"He does, huh?" Lorelai lifted her eyebrows at Rory in the mirror.

"Yeah. Suit, tie, the works. He looks―" She waved her hands around at her body, trying to put his image into words. "Groomed," was what she finally landed on.

"Can't wait to see that," Lorelai commented, grinning in the mirror. "I'll be down in a second."

Rory nodded and headed back downstairs to keep Luke company. Lorelai opened the bottle of 'good' perfume Christopher sent her every Christmas, since his imagination apparently could never come up with another idea. She dabbed some lightly on her neck and wrists. Then she quickly she threw her necessities into a small black clutch and made her way downstairs.

Luke had his back to her, chatting with Rory. He turned casually as he heard her descending.

"You can adore me now," she announced, pausing for just a moment on a step.

The look on his face let her know that the last panicked fifteen minutes of her life had been well worth it. Words, composure, breathing: She watched as they all deserted him. He could deny it until his dying day, but she'd seen his true feelings wash across his face. They might not include the love and devotion everyone else insisted was there, but right now, in this moment, he wanted her. Of that she had no doubt at all. Smugness gave an extra bounce to her step.

Behind Luke's back, Rory smiled and gave her a thumb's up.

"You look nice," she told him pleasantly, stepping up beside him, giving him another second or two of breathing space.

He pulled his lips in and took a deep breath. He looked at the floor, frowning. "Well, of course you'd think that. You bought most of this."

She smiled, only marginally disappointed that the Luke who served her breakfast every morning was back.

"Stand in front of the fireplace," Rory ordered, picking up the camera she'd had waiting on the side table.

"Rory," Lorelai started to protest.

"This calls for a picture," Rory insisted. "The two of you, going out on your first date? This needs to be immortalized. Come on now. No dilly-dallying. Go pose pretty."

With a sheepish smile, Lorelai took Luke's arm and tugged him over to stand in front of the fireplace, their traditional posed-picture spot.

"I hate havin' my picture taken," he grumped.

"Of course you do," Lorelai said, sounding understanding. "You hate having the evidence out there showing how nicely you clean up. You worry that a fashion photographer might see it and insist that you become a male model. Probably for those underwear ads where the guy always has his t-shirt tucked down into his underwear. Very wise, my friend. We promise, though, to keep this shot buried in our photo box. It'll be our secret." She wrapped her arm around his waist, leaned her head towards him and flashed Rory a bright smile.

Luke sighed but his arm came around her back and his hand rested on her shoulder. His head tipped towards hers. She didn't know if he was smiling or not, but Rory quickly took the shot.

"Nice," she said, approvingly. "One more," she wheedled, looking again behind the viewfinder. "Come on, look like you're excited to be going out on your first date."

Luke's fingers dug into her shoulder in reaction to Rory's words and Lorelai winced. Rory glared at them over the camera. "That doesn't look happy. You can do better than that. Come on, Mom!"

Giving Luke an apologetic smile, she turned towards him and gave him a measured kiss on his cheek.

_Oh, nice_, she found herself thinking once again, her lips finding a comfortable spot on his unexpectedly smooth cheek. She lingered for longer than she should have, breathing in the mild spiciness of his aftershave. The camera flashed as Rory took the shot.

"That'll do it." Rory sounded pleased.

"We'd better get going," Luke urged.

She hustled into her coat and grabbed her bag, and after a few teasing remarks from Rory about curfew, they made their way to his truck. They both paused and waved at Babette, clearly visible in her front window, a phone pressed to her ear.

"Are you going to be warm enough?" He frowned at her bare legs and the thin spring coat as he started up the truck. "It takes awhile for the heater to kick in."

"Are you?" she retorted, gesturing at him. "You don't even have on a coat."

"Guys are tough," he replied, smiling.

"Women are tougher," she argued automatically, trying to suppress a shiver.

He drove slowly through town and she waved at a group of townspeople clustered in front of Weston's. "Very smart, letting everyone see us like this."

"And, it's the only way to get us to the highway that takes us to Litchfield," he pointed out sardonically.

"True," she had to admit.

"So how was your dinner in Hartford last night?" he asked, his head swiveling as he checked for traffic before pulling out. "Usually I hear all about it."

"Um, funny you should ask."

"Why?"

"Well, next week you get to have a front row seat to the festivities."

"What are you talking about?"

Her fingers worried the clasp on her little bag. "Rory spilled the beans to my parents about us. My mother is insisting you come with us next week to dinner."

Lorelai would have thought that Luke didn't hear her except for the way his knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel. "She _told_ them?" he finally said, aghast.

"She told them," she sighed.

"Why would she _do_ that?" His voice was as horrified as when he caught her eating a deep-fried Snickers bar at last year's 'Stand Up for Salsa' Festival.

"She thought she was doing us a favor," she tried to explain. "She's watched me screw up my relationship with my parents for years by keeping them clueless about my life here. She didn't want to see me make the same mistake again, so she threw herself into the breech and told them about us. She says she doesn't want to see anything mess us up."

Luke's mouth was grim as he turned to quickly look at her. "There is no us."

"I know that, and you know that, but Rory unfortunately is our head cheerleader." She paused and tried to think of a way to delicately phrase it. "She apparently thinks that you and I are destined to be together."

"Ah, geez," he muttered, looking straight down the road. "We should have never let it get to this point. We should have told her truth right away."

"And miss our date?" she asked jokingly, before shaking her head. "I want to let her down easily. I don't want to crush her hopes about us. We can pretend for a little bit, can't we? For Rory?"

"I guess," he groused. "But I can't go to your parents' house. They hate me!"

"I don't think they _hate_ you."

"Well, maybe they don't exactly hate me," he conceded. "But I'm surely not the guy they have in mind for you. I can't see them welcoming me to the family with open arms," he mocked. He was silent for a few moments. "What did they say, when Rory told them?" he finally asked, hesitantly.

"My Dad was all gung-ho about it," Lorelai revealed. "He thought the way you brought me to the hospital showed your good character. He likes that you own your own business and that we've been friends for years. And my Mom said ―" Lorelai abruptly edited what she was going to say. "My Mom said you should come to dinner."

He glanced over at her, his forehead wrinkled in worry. "Do you think there's any way in hell we could pull that off?"

Lorelai shrugged. "Maybe we can find a way to 'break up' by then," she offered, her fingers twitching air quotes around the words. "Anyway, think about it, please? It'd make my life easier."

"Oh, well, if it makes your life easier," Luke said, rolling his eyes. "What was I thinking?"

She grinned as she watched the darkened landscape outside her window. She judged that they were still a good fifteen minutes away from Litchfield. "Are you nervous?" she asked, looking back over at Luke.

His hands tensed again on the wheel and something about seeing his bare wrist stretched out from under the strange dress-up clothes made her heart go fluttery with need. She suddenly and fiercely longed to save him from any pain or hurt the evening had in store for him. She licked her lips, tasting the tang of the cherry-flavored lip gloss, and then forced her eyes away, staring instead at the speedometer.

"Of course I'm nervous," he admitted. "Isn't everyone nervous before a first date?" He looked at her then, and shook his head. "No, wait. You wouldn't be."

"Why would you say that?" she questioned, glad to have something else to occupy her mind.

"I've never seen you nervous," he observed.

She smiled grimly. "You weren't with me when I went to my parents to beg for money to send Rory to Chilton. I sat out in their driveway forever, trying to get up the courage to go knock on the door."

He glanced swiftly over at her again. "I can't picture you nervous about anything," he commented.

She considered his words seriously. "I guess the way I was raised sort of took away a lot of the normal nervous stuff. It's hard to be nervous when you feel entitled," she stated, mocking herself and the lifestyle embraced by her parents. "And I was never nervous at school, I guess, because even though I wasn't Rory, that stuff came easy to me. I'd been with the same kids since Day One. The girls liked me because I was funny and the guys liked me because I'd go into the bathroom before class and roll up my plaid skirt another couple of inches."

"I bet," Luke said, his voice teasing.

"Then, when I got here with Rory," she began, her tone sobering, "I couldn't afford to be nervous. I had to pretend I had it under control. Nerves were a luxury."

"I bet," Luke said again, only this time his voice was softly serious and sympathetic.

"Anyway," she said, shaking off the shiver from thinking about her early life, "what's making you nervous about this date?"

"What isn't making me nervous?" he muttered. "This woman's some highly-educated lawyer. What in the world am I going to talk to her about?"

Lorelai shrugged in the darkened cab, not sure if he could see her or not. "Talk to her just like you do when she comes into the diner. Apparently that's been working just fine."

Luke snorted. "Making conversation during a 10-minute cup of coffee is a lot different than having to sit through a whole dinner at some fancy restaurant."

"I don't think you need to be nervous at all. Look, she obviously likes you, right? She's the one who came back to diner and initiated this date, right?" Lorelai didn't enjoy pointing this out to him, but she didn't want him feeling bad about himself, either. "Face it, Luke, she's already made her mind up about you. You only have to sit there and be your usual charming self."

"You really think so?" His voice was still doubtful.

"Yeah, I do," she sighed. "Stop worrying."

Light from passing cars showed her he was still frowning. "I'm worried about the truck," he finally admitted.

"What?" Lorelai tried to hold back her giggles. "This classic vehicle? What woman wouldn't want to ride in this?"

"It runs just fine," he started, already defensive.

"I know it does," she agreed swiftly, laying a quick hand on his arm.

"See, this is the sort of crap I hate about dating," he complained. "I like this truck. I've always liked this truck. You can't hurt it, it's indestructible. It's never let me down. I can't tell you the number of times I've needed it to haul stuff around. It suits me and my life, but because suddenly I'm goin' out to dinner with some woman, I feel like I have to be drivin' some shiny sedan just to measure up I hate dating!" he growled out, smacking the steering wheel for extra emphasis.

"If she hates the truck, just take her car," Lorelai suggested casually. She looked around the truck's interior, trying to peer through the darkness. "Where are her flowers?"

"What flowers?" He sounded defensive again.

"You're not taking her flowers?"

He wouldn't look at her. "I've never given a woman flowers."

She gasped. "Really? Never?"

"Never."

"Rachel? You never gave Rachel flowers?"

"No." She thought he sounded rather proud. "Rachel wasn't the type to appreciate that sort of sentimental symbolism. She had all sorts of arguments about that type of stuff."

"Poor, poor thing," Lorelai mourned, shaking her head. They were reaching the outskirts of town and she spotted the shining lights of a grocery superstore beckoning just beyond the next intersection. "Pull in there," she ordered, her voice giving him no room to disagree.

"What? Why?" he asked, even as he put on the turn signal and rolled into the parking lot. "We don't have a lot of time to waste here."

Lorelai was already half out her door. "Then hurry up."

He rushed to catch up as she sprinted towards the automatic doors. "What are we doing here?"

"We're getting you flowers to take to Nicole," she said, swiftly looking around and locating the floral department.

"No, I'm not," he argued, following after her anyway.

"Yes, you are," she disputed, quickly glancing over the offerings. "It's a great ice-breaker, it shows you care about her and the date, and I don't know a woman alive who doesn't get a little thrill knowing that a guy cared enough to stop and pick her up a prepackaged bouquet of half-dead flowers." She stopped long enough to glare at him. "This is non-negotiable."

"OK, fine," he grumbled. He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked around unhappily at the floral arrangements displayed around him. "What about these?" he asked, pointing sullenly at a bunch of dyed carnations.

"No," Lorelai said, scoffing.

"Why not?" he asked, confused. "They smell nice."

"Because… "She stopped and looked at him, wide-eyed. "I don't actually know why, but carnations have a bad reputation. Too reminiscent of high school proms, I guess." She continued on her quest, now humming 'I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation,' under her breath.

Luke stood between the refrigerated display case and a table full of houseplants, looking defeated at all of the choices. "What would you pick?"

"Me?" Lorelai's head shot up and she looked around, seeing the offerings in a new light. "Those," she said, pointing at a bouquet of daisies that had been dyed bright, vibrant colors.

"Oh, right," he said, his voice a cross between sarcasm and something she couldn't identify. "The thousand yellow daisies. How could I forget?"

She gave him a sharp look. "I like daisies. I've always liked daisies." She took a breath. "And for your information, the 'thousand yellow daisies' thing was something I threw at Max while we were arguing. It wasn't even his own idea."

Luke's fingers experimentally felt a philodendron leaf. "But he did it," he commented grudgingly.

"He did it," Lorelai sighed, trying to distance herself from that memory. "Here. These are perfect." She pulled a wrapped bouquet out of the bin and brought it over to him, shaking off the droplets of water from the stem.

"You think?" Luke took the flowers from her but looked at them doubtfully.

"Yes," she said quickly. "There are a couple of roses, but they're a really pretty dusty pink color, so you're not stuck with the clichéd red-roses thing. And they're surrounded by stalks of lavender, which is unusual, and looks really pretty with the roses. It's great. It looks like you actually put some thought into this." She was urging him towards the checkout as she talked.

"Whatever you say," he capitulated, standing behind her in line.

Lorelai automatically started scanning the headlines on the gossip magazines. She wondered if she should pick up some to take with her to read during her solitary dinner. The thought of dinner made her stomach rumble and she turned to the candy bars arranged on the other side of the lane. She wondered if she could get Luke to buy her some M&Ms and some Milk Duds to tide her over. She grinned to herself, imagining the rant that would inspire.

She jumped guiltily when he poked her in the ribs. "Is that what you meant?" he asked, keeping his voice low. He nodded at the woman ahead of them in line, who was carrying her toddler on her hip. The woman was leaning a little sideways, compensating for her daughter's weight.

Lorelai's emotions took a double hit as she absorbed the subtle craving brought on by young mother in front of her as well as the warm knowledge that Luke had retained their conversation from the other night. She suddenly needed to swallow hard before speaking.

"Yeah. That's it." She threw a quick smile back over her shoulder at him.

He was quiet, studying the woman before them as she paid for her groceries, deftly balancing her little girl. "I can totally see you like that," he whispered next to her ear. "I can picture how you probably looked with Rory."

Her stomach felt like it dropped down to her knees. Her eyes caught on the bouquet of flowers clutched in his hand and she wondered what the hell she was doing, helping him charm someone else Then she remembered. She was helping a friend with his confidence. Who was dating another girl. Not her. It wasn't her. This wasn't their date. And…this was Luke. She didn't feel like that about Luke anyway.

She squared up her shoulders. "You get really good at doing everything with only one hand," she told him.

"I bet," he agreed, watching the woman capably maneuver her cart one-handed.

They quickly paid for the flowers and rushed back to the truck, glad to be out of the chilly air.

"We're cuttin' it close here," Luke said, glancing at his watch as he backed the truck out of the parking space. "Where's this place, again?"

"On Broadway," Lorelai said, leaning forward to read street signs. "It should be the second street after this one. Turn right."

"What's it called?"

"The Liar's Club," she grinned. "I thought that was remarkably appropriate."

He was frowning again. "You sure you'll be OK there?"

She nodded vigorously. "I looked at the website and read the menu. Plus they've gotten some really good reviews." Her eyes were rapidly scanning the buildings on the street. "Oh, there! That's it!"

Luke was able to pull into an empty parking spot on the opposite side of the street, not too much farther down the block from the restaurant.

"OK," she said, picking up her purse and checking to make sure she was set, "I'll just jump out and ―"

Luke was already out of the truck and coming around to her side.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he opened her door.

His eyes rolled. "Do you really think that I'm just going to drop you off at some unknown place without even making sure it's safe?" He glared at her as if she'd insulted him.

"I'm sure it's fine," she protested, even as she involuntarily took his proffered arm to help her out of the truck. They ducked their heads against the chilly April breeze and quickly jaywalked across the street. "You really don't need to do this. I already totally buy the gentleman thing."

He shook his head at her as he opened the restaurant's door and they tried to push their way into a mass of hungry humanity waiting in the lobby.

Every seat and bench was taken and nearly every foot of available wall space had someone leaning against it. Soft jazz was playing in the background but it was hard to hear over the hubbub of so many people having conversations in the enclosed space. The opening into the dining area showed a blazing fireplace, dark wood and rich leather, and candles burning in the middle of every packed table.

"See?" Lorelai said, self-righteously. "I told you it was a nice place."

He gave a silent nod of agreement and they cautiously made their way over to the coat-check, stepping around the waiting couples. Lorelai slipped off her coat and Luke hung it up for her. Then, just as carefully, they worked their way back over to the entry.

"You're sure you're OK here?" Luke asked one more time, his face still distrustful.

"Luke! Yes! I'm fine!" she snapped, tired of his doubting of her judgment.

He sighed, but nodded. "Then I'll see you later," he said. He gave her shoulder a light pat and started shuffling his way to the door.

Lorelai started her trek towards the hostess station, murmuring "Excuse me," to everyone she was displacing along with a tiny smile.

Just as she reached her goal she turned once more to the door, just to confirm that Luke had made it out. He had paused, holding the door open for a group of people coming inside. Her eyes landed on his stretched out arm, holding the open the door, and once again she saw his wrist in that white cuff. Her eyes went to his face and she could see the grim resolve and the nerves still there. His jaw tightened and tilted up, and he stepped outside in the cold.

Before the door swung shut behind him she was fighting her way back through the crowd, her apologies this time insincere. She struggled with the heavy wooden door and staggered out onto the steps as a new potential diner opened it from the outside. She hugged her arms over her chest and ran after him.

"Luke!" she yelled, but the breeze was from the opposite direction and blew her shout the wrong way. She shouted again as he reached the truck, and this time he heard her and turned his head.

"What are you doing?" He crossed back across the street and met her on the sidewalk. "You're going to freeze!" he scolded. He unbuttoned his suit coat and enveloped her in it, pulling her against his chest.

She flattened her hands against the smooth white shirt doing such an excellent job of covering the solid Luke chest. She took a moment to breathe in his aftershave, knowing that the scent forever after would always make her remember this moment.

"What is it? Do you not want to stay here?" he asked against her hair, sounding concerned.

"No, no, that's not it," she assured him. She forced her gaze upwards, looking into his face. "You have nothing to be nervous about. This date with Nicole, I mean. You look really good, Luke, and she's gonna plotz when she sees you. You're a wonderful guy, maybe the best guy I've ever known, and if she doesn't see that, she's crazy. So I don't want you to worry, OK? You go and have a good time, and if she doesn't like the truck, then she's not worth the bother, do you hear me? It'll be her loss!"

His eyes watched hers seriously as he absorbed her message. His arms tightened around her and he smiled that lopsided grin of his. "OK," he said. He took a deep breath. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She forced herself to step away from his warmth. "Now you go pick her up and I'm going to fight my way back inside and get something to eat." She took a few backwards steps. "Have a good time," she added. "Don't forget the flowers!"

"I won't," he assured her, and she turned around and quickly made her way back to the restaurant's door, shivering.

Once inside she closed her eyes in regret, seeing that she was going to have to ease her way through the same people she'd already inconvenienced twice. "Excuse me," she began again, only this time her smile was sheepish. "Sorry. Excuse me. Last time, I promise."

"Two?" the hostess asked robotically when Lorelai finally reached her, her pen already poised over the seating list.

"Um, no, just one," Lorelai said uneasily. She'd noted on her way through the lobby how couples made up the vast majority of those waiting. Apparently the Liar's Club was a romantic locale, judging by how many people were cuddling together as they waited on a table. She shot the hostess a nervous smile, thinking that if Luke could see her now he'd ditch his belief that she never experienced that emotion. "Listen, do you serve from the menu in the bar? That way you wouldn't have to do that whole awkward table-for-one thing in the dining room for me."

"Sure," the hostess said eagerly, happy to not add one more name to the wait-list. She pointed over towards the entrance into the bar. "Just make sure to tell the server or the bartender that you want to see a menu."

"Thanks," Lorelai said, and started to pick her way over to the other side of the room.

It was a relief once she pushed through the café doors separating the lobby and the bar. There was room to breath and it was possible to hear the music and walk normally. A smaller fireplace gave warmth to one end of the room, and several couples and a group of four occupied tables by it. Actually, she saw, most of the tables were filled in here, too, but several seats were open at the bar itself. Lorelai made her way to a seat at the end, feeling pleased. Sitting at the counter would feel completely normal to her, anyway.

She carefully hoisted herself up onto the upholstered seat, watching to make sure she didn't inadvertently show off the good china as the chair swiveled underneath her. She took a few minutes to look around, adjusting to her surroundings. As usual, she absorbed the decorating, mentally noting the things that worked, adding them to the file of things she'd like to do one day in her own inn that existed only in her dreams.

She was thankful to see that this place was not filled with all sorts of kitschy memorabilia, as so many other restaurants were. This room looked more like her father's study on a larger scale, except that it was inhabited by happy people.

Her eyes went to the bartender, mainly because she was really hungry and she couldn't wait to see a menu. He was busy, which made sense, since the restaurant was so packed. His eyes kept darting out over the floor, keeping track of the tables there as he quickly and efficiently filled the orders of the servers who came to the end of the bar. Every so often he'd scan the drinks and hands of the people seated at the bar, too, and she could almost see him mentally calculating where he was needed next.

She openly watched him as she waited her turn. She couldn't decide how old he was. His face seemed weathered in a way that suggested he'd done a lot of living in short time, but there was something about the quick way he'd occasionally flip back his reddish, chin-length hair that made her think he was younger than she first thought. He was sporting a close-cropped beard, and although she wasn't usually a fan of the facial hair thing, she had to agree it worked for him. He finally made his way to her, smacking a napkin down in front of her. His eyebrows tilted up, silently asking for her order.

"Hi!" she said, giving him her usual bright smile. She put out her hand. "I'm Lorelai, and ―"

"Not happenin'," he said brusquely.

"What?" She pulled back her hand, frowning. "What's not happening?"

"Rule number 1 around here, sweetheart." His voice was softer than what she'd expected, but it was firm and no-nonsense, and had a gritty quality to it. "You order the drinks, I serve the drinks, and that's that. There's no chit-chat or tellin' me your name. This ain't a dating service, and I'm not bachelor number 1. Once we get that straight, we'll get along just fine."

Lorelai felt herself gaping at him. "I… I…" She was flustered for a moment, but then she pulled herself together. "Wow," she said, pinning him with a cold gaze. "They warned me, you know? They warned me, when I left home for the big city, that I'd run into people like you. They warned me that my small-town charm would be lost on you sophisticated city slickers. I guess I shoulda listened to my mama and daddy."

Something passed over his face, and she had the impression he was stifling a smile. "What'll it be?" he asked impassively.

"Well…" She sighed, mightily. "I was going to ask for a martini with some extra olives, because I'm really hungry, seeing as I just got off the train from Hooterville here, but I suppose that wouldn't be allowed. That's probably rule number 2. No extra olives. So I'll just take a martini and a menu, please. Or will that cause too much chit-chatting for you?"

She thought there might have been a slight twinkle in his eye as he reached for a menu without looking and placed it in front of her. He gave her a brief nod and headed back down to the other end of the bar.

She tried to shake off his assumptions about her. Her eyes skimmed over the options in the menu while she tried to remember what sounded good to her from her perusal of their website. As long as she got something to eat and drink she decided it didn't matter how rude the conceited bartender was. It wasn't like she was ever going to see him again, anyway.

A glass thunked down on the napkin in front of her and her head snapped up to see a martini glass with hardly any liquid in it, since it was filled to the brim with olives instead.

"That's not rule number 2," he told her. Then he smiled, and she saw that the lines weathered into his face actually had a purpose.

"Ooh." She instantly stuck her fingers into the glass and snagged an olive, popping it into her mouth. "Thanks," she said, smiling back at him tentatively. She dove back in for another olive.

"I'm Hank," he said, putting out his hand to her over the bar.

She quickly wiped her fingers on the napkin. "Lorelai," she said again, giving his hand a shake. She used the opportunity of retracting her hand to snatch up several more olives.

He reached for the martini shaker and topped off her glass, since she'd made room for the actual drink. "Lorelai," he said, trying out her name. "That's pretty," he decided. He studied her for a moment. "It suits you."

"Really?" she scoffed, tossing another olive in her mouth. "You work in a bar and that's the best line you've got?"

"Not a line," he grinned, and she decided she liked his eyes when he smiled. "That's merely an observation on my part. So, Lorelai, what's your story? What brings you here to the big city?"

"Oh, same old thing," she told him, munching on her olives. "You know, girl meets guy, girl and guy decide to prank the town, prank backfires, and then they have to pretend to date."

Amusement lit up his face. "Man, if I had a dime every time I heard that one," he pretended to commiserate with her.

"Yeah," she agreed seriously. "You always think it won't happen to you."

He laughed openly, a nice, warm laugh. "You ready to order?" he asked her.

"Pretty soon, I think. Still trying to decide if I need something more than an olive appetizer." She smiled and he nodded and moved down to where a server was waving a ticket at him.

She returned to her study of the menu. This might not be such a bad place to wait, after all.

* * *

><p>"I used to work at a truck stop, years ago," Hank related, as he came to stand in front of her. "Real greasy spoon type of place. I hope you're not offended when I tell you that you could eat some of those big guys I used to serve under the table."<p>

"You wouldn't be the first to tell me that," Lorelai agreed, licking her lips after her last baby-back rib. She tried to wipe the sticky sauce off of her fingers, and smiled gratefully when Hank handed her a packaged wet-wipe.

"Dessert?" he asked, his tone sounding somewhat challenging.

She considered that carefully. "Not yet," she decided. "Coffee, maybe, for now?"

"How about if I make it Irish?" he suggested.

"Perfect."

She watched him select a clear, footed coffee mug, pour whiskey into it, and fill it nearly to the top with coffee. He left room for the whipped cream to not splatter as he sprayed it on, and then he drizzled the chocolate sauce over the top.

"Don't be stingy with the chocolate," she advised him.

"Hey, I already gave you extra olives," he pointed out.

"Oh, so _that's_ rule number 2," she said sagely.

He was once again smiling as he sat the drink in front of her. "So tell me, was any of that story true you were feeding me earlier, about the prank?"

"All true," she insisted.

"You're pretending to date someone?"

"Yep." Unable to resist, she tried to take a sip of the coffee, and ended up having to wipe whipped cream off her nose. "First off, you have to understand the crazy little town of Stars Hollow. Maybe all little towns are like this, but we seem to have more than our share of busy-bodies. And for some reason, these people want me and the guy who owns the diner there to get together."

"But you don't like him," Hank surmised.

"I like him fine." Lorelai shrugged. "We've been friends for years, and he's a great guy." She cast a sudden glance of enlightenment at Hank. "In fact, you kind of remind me of him. Back home, this is what we do," she said, gesturing between them. "I sit at the counter and he feeds me, and we pick at each other. He's good at what he does, just like you. I notice how you're constantly checking on your customers, trying to stay ahead of what they need, even as you're _chit-chatting_ with me, and that's just exactly what Luke does."

"Luke, huh?" Hank commented, ignoring her dig about the chit-chatting.

She nodded, and managed to get a sip of the coffee. "Luke's totally sensible, and I'm…not. I had this crazy idea that on April Fools' Day we should pretend to be in love, just to get back at all of the townspeople who are always trying to see if there's something between us. It took a lot of convincing, but even Luke finally had to admit how satisfying it would be to get the last laugh on them. So we acted out this little scene in the diner, and everybody totally believed us. Including my daughter," she said gloomily.

"That's what backfired?"

"Oh, yeah," she sighed. "She was giddy with excitement that Luke and I were together. I was flabbergasted. Never saw that coming at all."

"And now you're scared to hurt her feelings," Hank guessed.

"Right. So I further convinced Luke to play along for awhile, just to keep Rory satisfied. Eventually I figure she'll see we're better staying the friends we've always been, and then we can pretend to break up, and everyone stays happy."

"How old is she?" Hank asked sympathetically.

"Eighteen," Lorelai said casually, taking another mouthful of drink, but keeping her eyes on him to gauge his reaction.

She watched as the ramifications of that flitted across his face, but to his credit, he didn't react in the typical fashion. Instead he smiled, and leaned over a little closer to her.

"You know, 18-year-olds can probably accept disappointments like that in stride," he pointed out.

"I know. But Luke's been in our lives for so long, and I just don't want her to think I'd tease her with something that's actually been important to her." She ran her finger over the clear handle on the mug. "I don't want her to be disappointed in me."

Hank sighed, his hand rubbing over his beard that had a lot of silver mixed in with the red. "That I understand." His eyes swept over the bar before they came back to rest on her. "I have a son myself He's five."

"That's a great age," Lorelai said instantly. "Old enough to follow directions, but young enough to still be in awe of you."

Hank chuckled, looking down at the bar. "Yeah, that's it exactly."

"What's his name?"

"Ian." He shut his mouth abruptly, as though he was considering how much to tell her. "I've got custody of him now. His mom…Well, she's not exactly in touch with what the rest of us would consider to be reality, but I still had to fight for him. We live with my sister and her two kids. They're teenagers, and the whole situation works out pretty well for us. There's always somebody home to watch Ian when I come to work, but somehow tonight everyone got their wires crossed and I had to leave him with a neighbor to get to work on time. That's why I wasn't very hospitable when you first got here."

"I totally understand," she said, returning his sympathetic tone from earlier. "Hey, do you have a picture?"

He stepped over to the cash register and returned with a picture that had been held under a magnet there. He handed it to her proudly.

"He's adorable." Lorelai smiled, examining the little boy whose red hair was spiked straight up on top of his head. "Love the freckles," she commented, handing him the picture back. She grabbed for her purse and pulled out a picture of her own. "This is Rory."

He snorted a laugh. "Man, you guys have good genes. She doesn't look 18 at all." He handed the picture of a baby Rory covered in bubbles in the bathtub back to her.

She grinned and flipped the picture sleeve over, revealing a more-adult Rory in her posed senior picture.

His amusement faded as he studied the picture. "She looks like a lovely girl, Lorelai. I can see why you don't want to disappoint her."

He handed her the picture back as he stepped away to fill an order, and Lorelai sighed as she stared at the picture of the most important thing in her life.

"Exactly," she muttered, and took a gloomy mouthful of whipped cream.

Hank came back as soon as he could. "So you're pretending to date," he prompted. "Why isn't he here with you, then?"

"Because he has a real date tonight."

"Wow. That's...awkward," Hank said, his eyebrows rising.

"No kidding. The guy hasn't dated in like two years, but he has to pick this week to start something new."

Hank opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but closed it quickly. His hand once again smoothed his beard.

"What?" Lorelai prodded him.

"Just thinking that she must really be something, if he's opting to be with her instead of here with you."

Lorelai considered his words. "Thank you," she said. "I mean, I think that's a compliment, right?"

"It was," Hank agreed, "and I'm kinda of stingy with them, so remember it."

She ducked down to take a drink, hiding the pleased look on her face. "So anyway, I'm hanging out here with you until his real date is over, and then he'll take me home so everyone thinks we've been out."

"Sounds complicated."

"Welcome to my world," she sighed dramatically. "Hey, do you have any cards?"

"Cards?" Hank frowned.

Lorelai eagerly nodded. "We could play poker when you're not as busy."

"No cards," Hank said thoughtfully, "but hang on."

He moved away and flagged down a server. She looked puzzled but soon returned with a small pile of paper placemats and a cup full of crayons. Hank brought them all over to her, flipping the kid's placemat over to reveal preprinted games on the back.

"Have fun," he said, managing to give her a wink that didn't look cheesy in any way. "I'll be back when I can and we'll play tic-tac-toe."

"Prepare to lose!" Lorelai warned him, and eagerly set to work finding hidden words.

* * *

><p>They'd rapidly become tic-tac-toed out and had moved on to Hangman. Hank had just figured out her phrase.<p>

"You have a truly dirty mind," he said, his voice a mixture of awe and disgust.

"Yes, I do!" Lorelai confirmed proudly.

He looked up when a movement at the bar's door caught his eye. "Hey, is this your guy?"

She swiveled around to see Luke bearing down on her. She smiled at him, which only made his scowl more intense. She noticed that he'd taken off his tie and had unbuttoned his collar. She noticed because it was a very, very good look on him.

"Hi, Luke!" she chirped. She flourished her hand at Hank. "This is Hank, Litchfield's best bartender. Hank, this is Luke, who makes the best burgers in Stars Hollow. Possibly in all of Connecticut."

She waited, but neither guy acknowledged the other. Instead they stared hard at each other, trying to size each other up. Finally Hank, who seemed to realize he was representing his workplace, gave a slight nod. Luke didn't return it.

"Let's go," he said curtly to Lorelai, putting his hand on her elbow.

"OK," she said agreeably, anxious to diffuse the smoldering tension. She hopped down as she opened her bag, finding a bill to stuff into the tip jar. "Thanks a lot for entertaining me, Hank. Remember that when you come to the Independence Inn I'll be happy to play tic-tac-toe with you and Ian."

"It's been a pleasure, Lorelai," Hank said with deliberate affability, even as he crossed his arms firmly over his chest.

She waved good-bye and then Luke took her hand and pulled her quickly out into the lobby. He grabbed her coat from the nearly empty rack and once she was bundled into it he hurried her out the door.

As soon as they were outside he exploded in irritation. "I can't believe you! What, it was too subtle to just write your number down on a napkin? You had to make sure he knew where you lived and worked?"

She grabbed his arm and dug in her heels, trying to bring his march to the truck to a halt. "What are you talking about?"

"In there!" He flung his arm back towards the door. "You were sure anxious to make sure he knew where to find you!"

"I did not ― I did no such thing!" she protested.

"I seem to recall you were pretty thrilled when a dad from Chilton followed you all the way to Stars Hollow," he reminded her, heat coloring his words.

She rushed her steps and managed to get in front of him. "I don't understand why we're arguing over this! I'd think you'd be happy that I found someone willing to talk to me and keep me company tonight! Otherwise I would have had a very long, boring night!"

She gave his arm an annoyed shake and they stared at each for a minute, with Luke breathing hard. At last he hunched his shoulders against the cold and shook his head. "You're right. It just seemed ―" he broke off his thought and shook his head again, as though he was trying to shake an idea out. "Never mind. I'm glad you found a nice place to wait on me tonight."

"It was nice," Lorelai confirmed, letting Luke help her into the truck. She let him get in and get the truck started back towards Stars Hollow before she started her inquisition.

"So how was the date?"

"Beats me," he sighed. "It was full of stilted conversation, long, awkward pauses, and way too much talk about how to properly cook fish."

"Sounds like a typical first date, then," Lorelai chuckled. "Did she like the flowers?"

"Yeah, she did." Luke turned to her, and she could see the pleased smile on his face from the pale light coming from the dash. "It turns out that purple stuff ― What was it again?"

"Lavender."

"Well, it turns out that lavender is like a thing with her. She loves it. She thought I was some sort of psychic genius."

"Oh, well, good then." Lorelai said hollowly, pretending to be pleased.

"Yeah, you were right about it being a good ice-breaker."

"Good," she repeated.

"When we got back to her house ―"

"You went back to her house?" she asked, alarm bells ringing in her ears.

"She wanted me to come in for coffee ―"

"_You_ drank _coffee_?" she all but screeched.

"I let her _give_ me a cup of coffee. I didn't actually drink more than a mouthful." She watched him grimace. "I still hate coffee."

"Oh, my God," Lorelai murmured, grasping the door handle for strength.

"Anyway, when we got there she sat the flowers in the middle of the coffee table and couldn't stop talking about how amazing it was that I'd brought her a bouquet with lavender in it."

Lorelai let the disturbing vision of Luke and Nicole alone at her place settle for a few miles. "So how was the restaurant?"

"Pretentious and overpriced." He was grimacing again. "The food was arranged on the plate like it was an artist's palette, what little food there was. Ounce for ounce, it probably cost the same as gold. Hey, you want to come to the diner for a peanut butter sandwich when we get home?"

She smiled as she shook her head. "No, my meal was great."

"Well, lucky you, then," he muttered.

"Who drove?" she asked.

"She did. She said it made more sense, because she knew where the restaurant was."

"Uh huh," Lorelai said, not trying to even sound convinced.

"Yeah," Luke said sourly, shrugging his shoulders. "That's what I thought."

"So is there going to be another date?"

"I think so," he said, thoughtfully.

"Really?"

"We're going to talk on Wednesday. We'll plan something out then, I think."

"Well, good." Lorelai heard that same hollow note in her voice again. "That's good."

"Thanks for helping me get through this," he said, breaking a stretch of silence. "Everything you said to me really helped."

"I'm glad," she replied automatically. "Don't ever forget what a great guy you are."

He turned towards her, favoring her with one of his genuine smiles and a nod of thanks, and she settled down into the passenger's side, letting the silence fall between them again.

She roused when he turned into her driveway. "Do you want to come in?" she offered, unfastening her seat belt.

"I think I'll go home and make my peanut butter sandwich," he said blandly.

"OK." She put her hand on the door handle, but then stopped. "When we talk about this, do we say we went to your restaurant or mine?"

"I'm not gonna talk about it at all," he reminded her, "so I suggest you use yours."

"That's probably best," she agreed with a grin. "We had a good time," she then instructed him, sternly.

"Yes, we did." He nodded at her, for once playing along.

"OK," she said again. She peered towards her house and also glanced at Babette's. "I don't think anyone's watching, but just in case…" She leaned towards him, intending to give him a friendly hug that could be mistaken for anything in the darkened cab, but she was stopped cold by the olfactory brick wall of another woman's perfume. She reared back, hurt and confused.

"You OK?" he asked, concerned.

"Just ― just twisted my wrist the wrong way," she said, giving out the first lie her tongue landed on.

He picked up her arm and rubbed her wrist, his fingers caressing her pulse point as he tried to make it feel better. "Sorry," he soothed her.

"It's OK," she mumbled, anxious now to get out of the truck.

His hand went to the back of her neck and he pulled her over a little bit towards him. He gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.

"Just to keep in practice," he told her, grinning.

"You ― You don't need to practice," she managed to stutter out, and then she bailed out of the truck and quickly walked up to her door, hoping her daughter was either asleep or out with her own boyfriend, saving her from having to make up more lies tonight about what a wonderful date she'd had.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: I want to give credit to _Peach_, one of the funniest contestants to ever appear on **Project Runway**, for the 'good china' comment. I knew as soon as she uttered it that I was going to have to use it in a story someday. Also, it's OK to like Hank, if you want. He's not going to get in the way. Promise.


	4. Family Night Dinner

Strange noises were again coming from the kitchen when Lorelai stepped into her house on Tuesday night. She dropped her stuff on the couch and kicked her heels off, aiming them at the general direction of the stairs as she proceeded down the short hall to investigate.

Once again her daughter was standing before pots boiling on the stove, but this time she was studying a note anxiously clutched in her hand, worry-lines squishing her face.

"What's going on?" Lorelai started to ask, but a heavenly smell took away her focus. "Oh my God, what is that? Are you like one of those people that just suddenly realize they have a natural talent? Are you like a cooking prodigy and it's just suddenly manifested itself?" She came to stand next to Rory, breathing deeply.

Distressed, Rory fluttered the piece of paper in Lorelai's face. "I don't know what this means!" she fretted. "It says to cook the potatoes until they're done! How should I know when they're done! Done doing what?"

"Done being potatoes?" Lorelai grabbed the note from Rory's fist and tried to decipher it. "Is this Luke's handwriting?" she asked, confused.

"Yes! He said that the only way he could do dinner for us was if I helped―"

"Dinner?" Lorelai felt that blankness coating her brain that only came when she had been blindsided by events. She hated that feeling. That and the shivery feeling tickling down her back that let her know she'd totally lost control of her life. "Why would Luke make us dinner? Here, I mean?"

Rory stopped her food preparation meltdown long enough to give her mother a pointed glare. "Because he's your boyfriend, Mom. You haven't invited him over to the house since the two of you got together. So I decided I'd do it."

"You invited him to dinner." Lorelai felt like she was always repeating what somebody else had said recently.

"Right." Rory stopped staring at the bubbling potatoes like she was secretly worried they were going to explode and turned to Lorelai. "I understand how you've always tried to keep your guys away from this house and separate from me, but this is Luke, Mom. There's no reason to keep him separate. He needs to start feeling comfortable here with us, so I asked him if he'd like to come to dinner tonight."

"Dinner," Lorelai repeated, yet again. "Here."

"Meatloaf." Rory opened the oven door just a little, letting Lorelai have a glimpse and allowing even more of the mouthwatering aroma to swirl out into the kitchen. "He brought stuff over this afternoon and left me instructions about when to start what, and I thought I was doing OK, but the potatoes are freaking me out now." She bit her lip and looked longingly towards her room. "Maybe I could get online and find something. Maybe Nigella or Paula Deen could help."

"Luke's coming to dinner," Lorelai said, somehow thinking that if she just articulated it clearly enough, it would all start to make sense to her.

Rory nodded, glancing at the clock on the stove. "They should be here really soon. Hey, could you set the table, and I'll ―"

"They?" Lorelai took in a deep breath, figuring she was going to need it.

"Jess, too." Rory picked up a fork and gingerly poked at a potato. "All four of us are kinda like a family now. I think it's time we started acting like it."

"Luke. And Jess. Are coming to dinner. Here." Short, concise sentences were probably best.

"Would you please snap out of it?" Rory demanded. "I need help here! It's not that big of deal, OK? It's just your boyfriend and my boyfriend coming to dinner! Now, set the table!"

Lorelai caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she walked to the cabinet holding their dishes. Maybe if she just concentrated on the task at hand, and didn't look into the future at all, it would make it easier.

"Should I use the Charlie's Angels plates?" she asked, her hand hovering over them.

"Sure," Rory agreed. "It's a pretty special night."

"It certainly is," Lorelai mumbled, and began to set their table for four. She'd barely gotten the last fork in place when someone knocked on the kitchen door.

"Can you get that?" Rory asked, still frozen at her watch over the potatoes.

Lorelai pulled open the door, and if she'd never noticed the similarities between Luke and Jess before, she certainly did now. The expressions of mutual distress and resignation on their faces were a perfect match. Her own discomfort faded as she grinned at theirs.

"Hi! Welcome! Come on in," she invited them, stepping to one side.

"Figured you'd be back here," Luke explained.

"That we are," Lorelai agreed. She cast a quizzical look Luke's way and he silently turned his hands palms up and shook his head, telling her he was as confused as she was.

"Hi, Jess," she said nicely, making an effort.

"Hi," he replied, maybe not quite as sullenly as normal.

"Luke, I need help!" Rory moaned.

Luke stepped over to look over the girl's shoulder. "Did you get all of the stuff I told you to?"

"Yes, it's all in the fridge or somewhere!" she snapped. "What am I supposed to be doing with these things? Are they done? What sort of directions was that, 'cook 'em 'til they're done?' What does that _mean_?" she beseeched him.

Luke's head reared back and he stared at Rory. "How can you not …" His words trailed off and he glared over at Lorelai. "Have you taught her nothing?"

"I've taught her plenty," Lorelai disputed. "I taught her the fine art of making your own chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I taught her how to walk in high heels. I taught her how to sneak out of the grandparents' house, although she's never actually used that knowledge. But this stuff," she said, waving her hands at the things cooking on the stove, "this I know nothing about."

Luke groaned at the both of them and put a lid over the bubbling pot. He walked over to the sink and drained the water off, then returned the pot to the stove, turning down the burner under it. "Just let those dry off a minute, then we'll mash 'em."

"I'm going to run up and change," Lorelai announced, deciding that there was now plenty of help in the kitchen. "Here, give me your coats." She walked over and tugged on the old green Army jacket Luke always wore. He let her ease it off of him, one arm at a time, as he tried to check on the state of doneness of their dinner.

"Jess?" She walked up to him and he silently handed her his coat. She smiled thinly and dashed for the living room, thankful to be away from the drama for a minute. But just then Rory shrieked, Luke yelled, and Jess laughed, and suddenly there was nowhere she wanted to be as much as in the kitchen with them. She tossed the coats onto a chair and ran upstairs, not wanting to miss any of this night.

When she rushed back into the room it was as if a parallel universe had taken over the kitchen. The meatloaf was resting on a platter and a green bean casserole was steaming on the table. Rory was tipping the beautifully mashed potatoes into a bowl. The space had seemingly expanded to include two guys. They no longer seemed like invaders. They fit, and fit well. Lorelai had to stop and take a breath.

"Can I help?" she asked, moving over into Luke's line of sight.

"Get the rolls to the table," he said, nodding his head at perfectly browned, aromatic bread.

Lorelai went up on her tiptoes next to the stove, knowing that a wicker basket, perfect for the rolls, was on the top shelf. She had to stretch to her limit before her fingers connected with it. A sudden coolness on her back let her know that her shirt had ridden up but she thought nothing of it, and continued reaching until the basket was in her victorious grasp.

She turned around and found Luke's thoughtful gaze plastered to her exposed skin. She held still, her eyebrows poised in a 'Like what you see?' sort of smugness. Luke started and looked up, guiltily, and she waited for the blush to start under his whiskers. Instead, he looked at her straight on, a rather sly smile landing on his mouth. She blinked several times and then smiled back, and he turned away, the smile still on his face. She reached almost blindly for the rolls, not knowing what to make of the slow tide of awareness sloshing through her. In so many ways, this night was a total surprise.

In short order they were clustered together around the small table, giving new meaning to 'family style' as all four of them grabbed for their favorite dishes. The first few minutes passed by as the girls praised the food through full mouths, but then quiet settled down around them. Awkwardness soon followed.

For once Lorelai found herself wishing she could emulate her mother. How many times had she heard Emily Gilmore break the ice and smooth the way for dinner-table conversation? Well, as much as she liked to deny it, she was the woman's daughter. Surely she could find some sort of conversation starter.

"So, Jess," she started, slowly. "Rory tells me you have the writing bug."

Jess gave a snort. "A bug? Gosh, Ms. Gilmore, I sure hope there's a shot I can get for that."

"Jess!" Rory admonished and Luke barked at the same time.

Jess squirmed slightly and looked at his plate. He shrugged. "Yeah, I like to write."

Lorelai felt like this was _such_ a lost cause, but she persevered. "That's great," she said, wincing at how insincere she sounded. She strove to be better. "Writing has always eluded me," she admitted. "When I'd complain, people who _could_ write always told me to just write down what'd I'd normally say, but that never sounded like what I really meant. It seems like something is always lost between my brain and the pen."

To her surprise, Jess gave her a thoughtful reply. "It's not so much writing down what you'd say," he explained to her. "It's more about finding the words to show how you feel." He actually looked at her and met her eyes for a moment. "You talk a mile a minute, and if you just wrote all those words down, they wouldn't sound like you. Not unless you add the words that show how you feel as you're saying them."

Lorelai deliberately closed her mouth that had popped open at actually hearing Jess speak without sarcasm. "That makes total sense," she told him, amazed.

"Yeah. Well," he shrugged, and went back to eating, his eyes on his plate.

"What sort of things do you write?" Lorelai asked.

"Just stuff. Observations, mostly."

"He writes incredible stories," Rory chimed in, helping herself to another piece of meatloaf. "It's pretty dark, though. Gloomy," she added, teasing him a little.

"Dark? Stars Hollow's dark?" Lorelai wondered.

"Why would you think it's about Stars Hollow?" Jess said with a frown.

Lorelai grabbed for another roll. "I don't know. Don't they always say to write what you know?"

"I know a lot more than Stars Hollow," Jess muttered. "My insane mother made sure of that."

"Jess," Luke said warningly. "I'm sure Liz did the best she could."

Jess gave a derogatory snort. "You just keep believin' that, Uncle Luke."

Lorelai jumped in to relieve the tension building at the table. "I'd love to meet your mom someday. I'm guessing that she and I would have a lot in common."

"No, you wouldn't," Jess said coldly.

"Jess!" Luke warned, again.

"What?" Jess demanded. "It's true! She ―" he waved his fork towards Lorelai, " ― likes to pretend that she's this wild and crazy free spirit and that Rory was raised with no rules, but don't try feedin' that bull to me! I know what it's like to have a parent that forgets you even exist until the Child Welfare people come knocking at the door, wanting to know why you haven't been in school for three weeks! This might as well be the set of Happy Days compared to how I was raised!" He turned and looked squarely at Lorelai. "You and my mother have _nothing_ in common," he added, his voice breaking a little bit.

Lorelai knew that she and Luke had stopped chewing at the same time. She was scared to even breathe. She didn't know what to do to help the angry young man sitting across from her at their small table, but she knew that how she regarded him had completely shifted.

She watched as Rory swallowed hard. Her daughter looked over at her, tears pooling over her deep blue eyes. She herself was blinking furiously. She knew Jess would never forgive them for tears.

Luke had frozen in his seat, but now he shifted uncomfortably. He cleared his throat. "Jess, I ―" He cut himself off and looked down at his hands gripping the edge of the table. "I should have checked on you guys more," he said, his voice gruff. "I didn't know it had gotten that bad."

"No biggie," Jess said, sounding like his was trying to downplay what he'd just said. He picked up his fork again and scooped up some mashed potatoes, shoving them into his mouth with calculated nonchalance, even though his hand had a tremor in it.

"You could have called me," Luke said, regret etched into his face and coloring his words.

"Like I said, no big deal." Jess was deliberately cool. "She's better now. I think that's why she exiled me here, because she finally realized how much she was messing up. Now that's she rid of me, maybe she can get herself straight."

"Well, we're … We're glad you're here!" Lorelai stammered out, not sure what else to say. She tried to smile.

"Yes. Yes, we are," Rory added, her face still suffused with sympathy. She leaned towards him and rubbed his arm.

"We can talk, you know," Luke offered earnestly. "If there's stuff you want to get off your chest, you can always tell ―"

"Forget it," Jess said curtly. "It's done. Over. Move on."

Everyone stared at their plates, picking at the food still on them. The atmosphere of things unsaid pressed down on their heads.

It was Jess who broke the mood. "Isn't there something you want to say?" he prodded Rory. "This meal was your idea."

"Oh, I don't know," she mumbled, biting down on her lip. "Maybe tonight isn't ―"

He rolled his eyes, doing a remarkably spot-on imitation of his uncle. And when Lorelai realized it wasn't an imitation, and she had to smother a grin. "Say it," he ordered Rory, losing patience.

"Oh, man," she breathed out. She tucked her hair behind her ears as she fidgeted in her seat. "OK, so here's the thing," she began. "Jess and I are worried ―"

"Leave me out of this," Jess grumbled.

She turned no-nonsense blue eyes on him and Jess suddenly stared with fascination at the old tabletop in front of him.

"Jess and I have concerns," she began again, and this time her words were sure. "We're worried about how awkward this could be, but if we discuss this now, like adults, we think we can mitigate the uncomfortable part."

"What are you talking about?" Luke asked, his eyes darting nervously between them.

"I'm dating your nephew and you're dating my mother," Rory pointed out to him. "This has the potential of becoming a really bad Saturday Night Live sketch if we don't watch out."

"Aw, geez!" Luke groaned.

Rory ignored him. She was dead serious. "Here's what I think. I graduate in just over a month, and then Mom and I are off to Europe. By the time we get back, it will be nearly time for me to head off to Yale. So Luke, if you could not move in until then, I think ―"

Lorelai shot up out of her seat while Luke was still trying to digest what Rory was saying. "I think I need a beer!" she said shrilly. "Luke, want a beer?" She flew to the refrigerator.

"This makes sense," Rory insisted. "Let me get out of the house before you two start cohabitating, and that cuts way down on the icky crossover part. Once I'm at Yale," she explained to Luke, whose face was a study in disbelief, "you guys can do what you want. Jess can still live up over the diner while he works _and goes to school_," she emphasized, turning to her boyfriend. "Because he _is_ going to college somewhere, no matter what he thinks."

"Only in your mind," Jess refuted her, but he didn't sound like he was trying too hard to disagree.

Luke was breathing erratically and looked to be on the edge of some sort of fit, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to find words. Lorelai grabbed his hand and shoved a bottle of beer in it. She'd already twisted off the cap.

"Drink," she advised him, raising up his arm. She'd already had a good gulp of hers.

"Rory. Sweetheart. Angel." Lorelai sat back down in her seat and grasped her daughter's hand. "I can assure you that Luke will not move into this house while you are still in it."

Rory looked back at her, her eyes wavering. "I don't want you to sacrifice for me, Mom, but I just don't want ―"

"It's no sacrifice," Lorelai insisted. "We can put off the cohabitation. It's no problem." She fought off the sudden urge to giggle. "Right, Luke?"

Luke had the cold beer bottle up against his forehead. "No problem," he echoed, sounding like the words were choking him.

"See?" Lorelai said. "That's all settled."

"You good with that?" Jess asked Rory.

"Yes," she said, nodding thoughtfully.

"Any other concerns?" Lorelai asked.

"Well," Rory began.

"There's pie!" Luke practically leapt from the table, cutting off whatever topic of discussion was still on Rory's agenda.

"Luke, I don't think we're quite done with the main course yet," Lorelai said, pointing to her plate, where Jaclyn Smith was still covered with mashed potatoes.

"I said there's pie," Luke said firmly, in a way that showed he was not listening to any arguments.

"Great. Let's have pie." Lorelai shrugged in agreement. She soon discovered that a bite of apple pie in-between forkfuls of mashed potatoes wasn't bad at all.

* * *

><p>"Oh, my God," Lorelai groaned, coming back into the kitchen where Luke was viciously scrubbing the meatloaf pan. As soon as the meal had ended she'd encouraged the kids to head out to a movie, leaving them alone to clean up. She'd walked them to the door and watched them head towards town, wanting to make sure that they were really gone. "What in the world was that all about?"<p>

"I thought maybe you'd put her up to it," Luke commented, trying to rinse out the pan.

"Not me!" Lorelai grabbed a towel to dry with. "It was a complete shock when I walked in here tonight."

"She showed up at the diner after school," Luke explained. "She said she didn't know if I felt awkward coming over here or if you were keeping me away deliberately, but she didn't like it. Then she said that the four of us were like a family now and we should start to act like it."

"That's practically the same thing she told me." Lorelai's forehead was creased with worry. "I really don't like how invested she is in this."

Luke shook his head. "I'll say it again: We really need to end this before it gets worse."

"Yeah." Lorelai stared out into the dark backyard that was barely visible through the window over the sink. "I just don't know how to go about it."

Luke's eyes came up and met hers in the reflection of the glass. "It needs to be done soon," he urged, but his voice was kind.

"You're right," she sighed. "You're right."

They were quiet for a few minutes, both locked into their own thoughts. Luke's hands washed and Lorelai's dried.

"So … Jess," she finally ventured, not sure if Luke would discuss it or not. "I guess that was your second surprise of the night, huh?"

He'd rolled up his sleeves to do the dishes and now he plunged his hands into the soapy water, letting them rest on the bottom of the sink as he now stared out at the darkness. "Yeah," he said, and Lorelai hated to hear the self-recrimination in his voice.

"Liz must be like your polar opposite," she observed.

"Pretty much," Luke agreed. "I guess I've always known that. I guess it was foolish of me to think that she'd be able to raise a kid on her own. I knew she couldn't take care of herself. Why in the world did I think she could take care of Jess?" His voice pitched into anger.

Lorelai instinctively put her hand on his upper arm and rubbed it soothingly. "You know, Jess is right," she said, as calmly as possible. "That's all over and done with now. Nothing you can say or do now is going to change the way he was raised ― or not raised, in this case. But the thing that broke my heart is that he thinks his mom wanted to be rid of him. That's a terrible thing for him to believe."

Luke's head turned swiftly to see her and she blinked rapidly, trying to fight the tears that were once again just under the surface. She didn't want Luke to know how much that small revelation had resonated in her heart. Although the circumstances in which they'd been raised couldn't have been farther apart, Lorelai knew what it felt like to be an afterthought to your parents.

He looked at her hard and she tried her best to smile. He looked puzzled, as if he knew there was something else, but finally he appeared to accept her wan smile at face value.

"And now he thinks he's not wanted here, either," Luke said gruffly.

"That we can change," Lorelai said with determination. "We can show him that's not true. I know I haven't been his biggest fan ―" she ignored Luke's sound of amusement "―but I can be better. I can let him know that's he's welcome here when he comes to see Rory. I can change," she promised with sincerity.

Luke threw a wet, soapy arm around her shoulders and squeezed her hard. "Thanks," he whispered, against her hair. "I'll take all the help I can get with him."

"You're welcome," she said. Feeling that she needed to dispel the serious mood, she glared at him and made a show of wiping off her wet shoulder. He laughed and she glowed. She was finding that she loved to make him laugh.

Dishes done, they headed into the living room. "I need to prepare you for Friday night," Lorelai said as they sank into the old couch.

"It's fine," he said dismissively, stifling a yawn. He started to roll his sleeves back down. 'It's just dinner with your parents. How difficult can that be?"

"That's your first mistake! Never underestimate your enemies!" Lorelai chastised him.

"I didn't know they were my enemies," he scoffed.

"They will do everything in their power to humiliate you." She paused for a moment, searching for the words to make him understand. "They will intimidate you. They will berate you. And by the time you leave, you will bear the bloody scars inflicted by a dinner at the Gilmore household."

"That's a tad melodramatic, don't you think?"

No! Luke, it's not! And that's why you're not prepared!"

"Look, Lorelai." He sat back up, groaning slightly as he faced her. "There's nothing they can say to me that will matter. It's not like I'm really your boyfriend, so it doesn't matter what their opinion of me is. They can be nasty, if they want. I don't care. I can let it roll right off my back."

She shook her head, realizing that he just didn't get it. "I don't want them to hurt you," she said, very quietly.

His eyes caught hers. "They can't hurt me," he insisted. "This is all pretend, and I'll be fine. I promise," he added, obviously seeing the doubt on her face.

"That's what you say now," she sniffed, reaching for the remote. "Just don't bleed all over the Jeep on the way home."

"Now the truth comes out."

"And you know the dress code, right? Suit, tie?"

He groaned again. "OK, now I'm hurting."

"Poor baby," she said, not sounding sympathetic at all.

"Go to ESPN," he instructed as she began to search through the channels.

"I think not," she disputed.

"Let me refresh your memory. Who cooked tonight? Who cleaned up?"

"Well, let's see," she pretended to ponder. "Rory was cooking when I came home, and I did half of the clean-up."

"Really?" Luke was fixing her with a hard look. "You think drying a few dishes somehow equals your fair share of clean-up duties? You think Rory made the meatloaf?"

"As far as I know." She stared at the screen and tried to squelch her smile.

"I say I did the majority of the work and I get to choose what we watch. Besides, I'm your guest."

She was enjoying this so much. She loved that Luke was arguing with her over what to watch on TV. She loved that his arguments sounded so similar to things that she might say.

"OK," she capitulated, "but when it gets to the point where I'm tempted to slit my wrists, we move on to something else."

"Fine," he agreed, and settled his head back against the couch.

He was quiet and she let her mind wander over all of the things currently jammed into her head. Her eyes were on the screen and soon she realized that she knew even less about sports than what she'd thought. It seemed like every third team they covered had the same name, just different outfits. How confusing was that? Some of the baseball players were really cute, though. She remembered that Luke had played baseball. She glanced over at him, trying to picture him in one of those uniforms.

He'd fallen asleep, his arms crossed over his chest. Her first impulse was to wake him with much loud mocking, but then she remembered how early in the morning his day started. She remembered that he'd come over here and made dinner for them, just because her daughter asked him to. She remembered how he was going along with her on this crazy joke, just because Rory meant that much to him.

She cautiously stood up from the couch and tiptoed over to the lamp on his side, turning off the bright light. She stood behind him, her fingers flexing like a magician's about to pull off a tablecloth piled with dishes. Uncertainly she placed her hands on his hat, carefully prying it from his head. She didn't breathe until she had it safely in her hands and he was still deep asleep.

She turned off the other light, allowing the room to be only lit from the TV screen's flickering images. She took control of the remote and found a _Frasier_ rerun to watch, making sure to turn the volume down to a barely decipherable level. She settled down on the couch, glancing back over at him. It seemed to her that her heart was pounding too hard for the miniscule physical effort she'd just put forth.

She glanced over at him again, and for some reason she remembered their conversation in his apartment just a few nights ago, about how much she still longed to hold a baby again. Her arms itched with the need to hold _something_ and she rubbed at them mindlessly. She didn't even think about what she was doing. She held her breath once again and slowly worked her arm behind his back, giving him a tug when she was in place.

He rolled towards her, his one arm snaking around her waist and drawing her close as if she was his pillow. Her breath caught in her throat as his head snuggled into the cradle made between her neck and collarbone. And she closed her eyes and gulped, because … Well, it was perfect. It felt … perfect.

She forced her eyes back open and she made herself breathe calmly until she felt her pulse stop pounding. Then she watched the TV, not even trying to follow the plot. It was much more entertaining, she discovered, to run her fingers over the flannel at the back of his neck and sniff his aftershave. Aftershave mixed with just a little bit of meatloaf and apple pie. It was more exciting to let him nestle ever closer to her in his sleep. Her arms weren't itching anymore at all.

That _Frasier_ episode ended and the next one began. Her arm was cramping behind his back but she didn't care. Then he suddenly gave out a roaring snore and woke himself up.

He was blinking up at her and she expected him to jump away in embarrassment. Instead he gave her one of those deliberate slow smiles, like the one in the kitchen earlier. "Hi," he said, his voice raspy from sleep, and something about the timbre of it made parts of her liquefy deep down inside.

"Hi," she whispered back, and because she really couldn't help it, her hand went to his head and smoothed back his hair.

He carefully pushed himself away from her, rubbing at his eyes to clear them. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"It's OK," she said, her voice still very soft. "I know you've had a long day."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I should probably go."

"Sure," she said. She got up, moving a little stiffly, and turned on one lamp. She picked up his hat from the coffee table and handed it to him with a flourish.

While he settled it on his head she picked up his coat from the chair. He put it on and she walked him to the door.

"I know you just did this for Rory, to make her happy," she told him as he was ready to step through the doorway. "But I want to thank you. It 's been a really nice night."

His chin lifted and he looked out to where his truck was parked. He glanced back at her and then at the boards of the porch under his feet, looking like he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to say something.

Finally he looked at her, and his eyes were steady. "I didn't just do it for Rory," he said, and once again, his mouth was home to one of those special smiles. He nodded at her once and headed for his truck.

Lorelai watched him leave with a hand pressed over her pounding heart, because once again it felt like she was running a race.


	5. Champagne and Showers

"You know how when you're really excited about something happening, like vacation? And you're just counting the days, but it never seems to get any closer? And then, when you don't want something to happen, like going to the dentist, six months speed by just like that?"

Lorelai was babbling. She could hear herself. She could hear that frantic note of hysteria creeping into her voice, but she had no extra helping of willpower to smother it. Just like her left leg that was jiggling uncontrollably, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

"Mom, it's OK," Rory said from her right. "We'll be there with you. I really think you've got yourself all worked up for nothing."

"I agree. Calm down," was Luke's advice from her left. He had offered to drive, and remembering his anxiety about the truck, Lorelai had let him. Besides, she was worried she'd drive them right into an accident, as skittish as she was. "It's just a dinner," he added, soothingly. "You've survived three years of them, practically. You'll survive this one, too."

"Absolutely," Rory added, in her calmest voice. "It'll be over and done with before you know it. And think how happy this will make Grandma."

"Ha!" Lorelai said, intending it to sound sarcastic and disbelieving. The noise that came out of her instead was shrill and panic-stricken.

She sensed Luke looking behind her head, over at Rory, the two of them silently discussing her mental status.

Part of the problem was that she was sitting in the middle, so close to Luke that his knuckles whispered against her knee every time he changed gears. He looked good again, all dressed up in his best clothes. He smelled good, too, although not as good as he did on Tuesday night with the meatloaf smell added in. A shiver worked its way through her as she remembered the feel of him cuddled against her. She tried to push that memory far, far away She wanted it completely out of the truck cab. She wanted to leave it stranded along the side of the highway. The last thing she needed tonight was to get tangled up in those confusing emotions again.

"Hey." Luke's hand landed on her knee solidly, giving it what was meant to be a comforting squeeze, but she nearly hit her head on the roof when she jumped from the contact. He gave her leg a few calming pats and smiled at her when she turned shell-shocked eyes to him. "If you're doing this just to prove to me that you do get nervous, you can stop now. I believe you."

"Oh, yeah. Heh. Heh." She tried her best to laugh.

Somehow panic had made her misjudge distance, and she gasped in dismay as Rory directed Luke down the street to the Gilmore home.

"We're here? We're here?" Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. "How did that happen?"

Luke and Rory were both standing outside of the truck, and when it became apparent that Lorelai wasn't exiting under her own power, Luke leaned back inside and took off her seatbelt. He got an arm around her waist and pulled her to the door, sliding her over the well-worn leather seat. She managed to get her feet under her but the ground was wobbly, and Luke kept his arm around her to lend her support.

Rory's eyes were large with worry. "I talked to Grandma about tonight. She promised to be on her best behavior."

"Oh, Kid." Lorelai's shoulders sagged. "That just means that the scars won't be visible when we leave."

Light from the suddenly opened front door froze them in place. "What are you all doing just standing out here?" Emily Gilmore demanded. Her gaze swept over them and stalled on the masculine arm wrapped around her daughter. Luke withdrew it at once, stepping completely away from Lorelai.

"Well, I'm glad you're all here. Finally." Lorelai could tell her mother was trying her best to sound polite. "Won't you come in?"

As they filed inside, Lorelai made an effort, too. "Mom, I know you've met before, but this is Luke. And Luke, I'm sure you remember my mother, Emily Gilmore."

"It's very nice to see you again, Mrs. Gilmore. Thanks for inviting me to have dinner with all of you."

"I'm happy you could join us. And please, call me Emily." Her smile looked a little forced, but she put out her hand and Lorelai crossed off one thing from her worry list. She knew her mother had a thing about guys that tried to initiate a handshake instead of letting the lady take the lead on it. Luke had passed the first test.

"Come in, come in." Emily led them into the living room. "Richard, our company is here."

"Hello girls!" Richard said. Lorelai watched her father quickly put down his ever-present paper and stuff his reading glasses into his pocket. While he stood up she ushered Luke over to him.

"Dad, I know you've heard about Luke but I don't believe you've actually had the chance to meet before. So this is Luke. Luke Danes." She sucked in a big breath and used Luke's arm to steady herself for a moment. "Luke, this is my dad, Richard Gilmore."

"Nice to meet you, sir," Luke said as their hands met.

"Yes, I've been hearing about you for years," Richard said, standing a little taller as he sized Luke up. "Someday I'm going to have to try one of those hamburgers that Lorelai raves about."

"She is one of my best customers," Luke said, smiling at her quickly.

"Please, sit down," Emily invited.

"Let me get you some drinks," Richard offered, making his way to the liquor table. "Girls? The usual?"

"If the usual has lots and lots of booze in it, yes please," Lorelai said, sitting down in the middle of the couch next to Rory. She left room for Luke to sit on her other side. She felt safer in the middle. She'd feel better yet with a nice mind-numbing drink in her hands.

"Luke? What can I get for you?"

Lorelai had coached him on the proper drink request, but she could tell he was balking. "Well, I'm actually not much of a drinker."

"No?" Richard glanced over at him. "Then let me give you some incredible 35-year-old Scotch I recently had the pleasure of acquiring. I think it may just change your mind about that."

"Sure," Luke agreed, putting his hand down to block where Lorelai was poking him in the ribs, her gentle way of reminding him to take the drink.

"I'm not sure that the Scotch is really as good as I think it is, or if it's just the memory of beating the pants off Calvin Jacobsen to win it that makes it seem so smooth. That man's been a thorn in my side personally and professionally for 30 years," Richard explained as he brought the glass to Luke. "The look of outrage on his weasel-like face when it was announced that I'd beaten him by two strokes made the ridiculous sum of money I'd paid to play in the golf tournament one of the best investments I've ever made."

"Congratulations then," Luke said, taking a polite sip. Lorelai could feel the slight shudder go through him since the three of them were packed together on the small couch. "I appreciate you sharing your win with me." He nodded and raised the glass at Richard.

"Do you golf?" Richard asked as he took his seat.

"No," Luke said simply.

"You appear athletic," Richard observed. "You should learn. Golf is invaluable in business, I've learned. What are your sports?"

"Back when I was a kid, I ran track." He shrugged. "A little baseball."

"He's being modest," Lorelai piped up. "They've got this semi-monument dedicated to him over at the high school. All of these trophies piled up in a heap. And this picture of him in these little track shorts ―" She broke off abruptly as Emily looked at her in cold disapproval. She silently eased herself back against the couch.

"You went to Stars Hollow High School?" Emily asked, pulling her gaze away from Lorelai.

"Yes." Luke's thumb was starting to rub against the lip of his glass. "I'm one of those people that's never moved away from his hometown," he admitted.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Emily stated. "It's good to have ties to a place."

"That must be an advantage with your business," Richard commented. "I would think it would encourage the locals to patronize your diner."

"Um, I guess," Luke said, glancing at Lorelai.

"Sometimes he wishes some of the locals would stay away, huh, Luke?" Lorelai nudged her shoulder against his. "Bet you wish Taylor and Kirk would stay away, huh?"

"Lorelai, no businessman wishes to lose business, no matter how annoying the clientele," Richard chastised her. "So Luke, do you own the building itself?"

"Yes," he said, and Lorelai noticed that the heel of his right foot starting to slowly tap up and down. "And recently I bought the building next door, too."

"Oh? Do you plan on expanding the diner?" Emily asked.

"It's going to be a soda shop-pay," Lorelai revealed eagerly, over-pronouncing the extra 'p' and 'e' from Taylor's sign. "There's going to be giant horses standing out front."

Richard frowned. "Won't that cut into your business?"

"Oh, no," Rory spoke up for the first time. "It's going to be strictly candy and ice cream. When people are hungry, they'll still go to Luke's," she said, loyally.

"Gotta have the burgers and fries," Lorelai nodded.

"How many employees do you have?" Richard wanted to know.

"One full-time and about eight part-time. It's kind of seasonal," Luke explained. "I add a few more during the summer and fall when the tourists are swarming over us." He shot a quick smile at Lorelai. "That's one of the advantages of having such a nice inn catering to the leaf-peepers. The rest of us reap the benefits."

Lorelai beamed back at him, pleased at the compliment.

A small lull fell over the room. Everyone took a sip of their drinks. Lorelai noticed that Luke's leg had stopped rising and falling and she started to relax.

Richard savored his mouthful of Scotch and then turned again to Luke, seemingly ready for another round of interrogations. "What's your opinion of prenuptial agreements, Luke?" he asked conversationally.

"Dad!" Lorelai pushed herself to the edge of the couch in a panic. She noticed that Luke had gone very still and that Rory had a hand clamped over her mouth as she stared at her grandfather.

"It's just a question, Lorelai," Richard told her dismissively. "You both have property attached to you, and it's a logical question. No one's calling the lawyers tonight. It's merely something to consider."

From her perch on the edge, Lorelai turned sorrowful eyes towards Luke. She hoped he could tell how very, very sorry she was.

He looked at her swiftly and his leg began jiggling again. His hand gripped the glass of unwanted Scotch. "I think it's always wise for a woman to protect her interests," he said slowly. "My sister's lost everything she had a couple of times because of some poor choices she's made."

Richard was listening intently. "So you'd have no problem with Lorelai retaining control of her own interests?"

Again, he looked over at her before answering. "_If_ that day ever comes, I definitely think Lorelai should have a prenuptial agreement. After all, she's got Rory to think about."

"Exactly," Richard nodded. "So you'd have no problem keeping your assets separate?"

Luke sighed. He turned and put his drink on a coaster lying on the small table at his elbow. When he turned back, he stared at his hands grasping his knees for moment. "Sir, I've known your daughter for a very long time," he finally began. "And yes, whatever she has should stay hers. But because I've known her for so long, I also know that whatever I have would become hers, agreement or no agreement." He shrugged and looked at Richard confidently. "That's just the way it is."

There was silence for a beat as everyone absorbed what he'd said. Then Richard's great booming laugh echoed around the walls.

"Well said, my boy, well said!" He toasted Luke with his glass. "Emily, this young man understands women quite well!"

Lorelai gave Luke a wide-eyed look of nervous surprise and once again settled back into her spot on the couch. She helped herself to a big gulp of her drink.

"Luke, did Lorelai tell you what I said when she told us about you?" Emily asked eagerly.

Lorelai shook her head slightly at her mother in warning.

"Um, no, I don't believe so," Luke said uncertainly.

"Grandma, are those drapes new?" Rory asked, trying to derail the conversation before it got started.

For once Emily Gilmore totally ignored her granddaughter. "I told her I knew it all along," Emily bragged. "Do you remember Rory's sixteenth birthday party? Richard and I were there."

Lorelai shook her head even harder at her mother, mentally begging her to stop.

"Sure," Luke said, glancing worriedly at Lorelai.

"I saw you two when you first came through the door," Emily said. "I could tell right then that the two of you had feelings for each other."

"Oh, God," Lorelai whispered, knowing what was coming. "Kill me now."

Luke shifted nervously next to her. "Oh, well, I wouldn't say that we ―"

"And I told her," Emily continued, ignoring both of them. "She denied it, of course, because that's always her reaction to me, but she was pleased when I pointed out how you'd looked at her. She couldn't hide how delighted she was when I said you looked like you wanted to eat her up."

Luke choked a little bit and reached for his drink.

"_Grandma!_" Rory sounded scandalized.

But Emily wasn't done yet. She looked pointedly at Luke. "Do you remember what I said to you at the hospital?"

"At the hospital?" Lorelai quirked an eyebrow at Luke, forgetting her own discomfort for a few seconds. He took another sip of his drink, paying no heed to her.

"I told him that the two of you were idiots for trying to ignore the feelings that you both obviously had for each other." She looked smugly at both of them. "It feels good to be vindicated."

"See, Lorelai? You should listen to your mother more often," Richard observed, smiling fondly at his wife.

A maid who looked to be the same age as Gran glided into the room. "Dinner is served," she announced, and turned precisely on her heels, exiting the room silently.

"Gretchen has been such a find," Emily gloated, taking Richard's arm as they walked towards the dining room. "Maribel Cartwright died last week and I just snatched Gretchen right up during the visitation."

"See? Things are going fine," Rory whispered encouragingly, as the three of them trailed after Richard and Emily.

"You think this is fine?" Lorelai reproved her.

"Well ..." Rory bit her lip, suddenly doubtful. "It could have been worse," she pointed out.

During dinner Lorelai started to think that Rory was right. Luke complimented the food and he and her mother had a long conversation about the pros and cons of grilling versus poaching. Then her Dad said something about one of the teams she vaguely remembered hearing about on ESPN on Tuesday night, and he and Luke talked about that for far too long. After that the grandparents moved on to their favorite topic, Rory's success at Chilton, and both she and Luke were happy to chime in on that. So dinnertime passed by uneventfully; possibly even pleasantly.

It was also very nice, she discovered, to have Luke filling up some of the space on her side of the table. It was nice to have someone there to deflect her mother's constant critical gaze. It was nice to have someone next to her who was able to give her a friendly smile and occasionally just barely touch her hand under the table, stopping her from making a snide comment. It was nice to have someone who was on her side, in more ways than one.

The table was cleared and Lorelai took a sip from her water glass, anxious for dessert. She really hoped it was something chocolate. She wondered if there was any chance that they'd ever get the amazing pudding in the crystal bowls again.

"Well, I have something I'd like to say." Emily smoothed the ivory damask cloth at her place, and then looked straight at her daughter, favoring her with a knowing smile, before she turned her gaze to Luke. "I'm sure that Lorelai has filled your head with all sorts of details about what a stickler I am for protocol and proper procedures."

"Um, no, not really," Luke said, his eyes darting back and forth between Lorelai and her mother.

"Well, it's true," Emily admitted, that same smile still on her face. "I usually insist on following society's rules about manners and etiquette. But I think that in this case, it's quite permissible to make an exception."

"What are you talking about?" Lorelai was mystified at where this was going.

"I'm talking about the length of time between your engagement and the wedding, of course," Emily said, as though it was obvious. "We understand if you want to speed things along."

Luke made a weird humming noise of distress deep in his throat and Rory's eyes were bugging out of her head. Lorelai found her hand wrapped so tightly around her own throat that she was afraid she was going to choke herself.

"_Mother!_" she forced out. "That's completely premature. That's not … That's something that's not even on the table."

"Oh, well, maybe not at the moment," Emily said, still looking all-knowing. "But you only have to look at the glow on your face to know that –" She cut herself off and looked at Lorelai sternly. "Are you already pregnant?"

"No!" Lorelai was truly horrified. "Mom, no!"

Emily looked her over acutely and seemed to accept her answer. "Well, even if you were, we'd understand that, too. After all, neither of you are exactly spring chickens anymore. We'd understand if you were anxious to get going on your family. That's another good reason for moving the wedding date up."

Luke picked up his water glass with a not-so-sure hand, his eyes glued to the square foot of tablecloth in front of him.

"Did you ever find out about the symptoms for an aneurism?" Lorelai asked, not completely joking, as she rubbed at a spot right above her left eye. "Because I've got this like blinding pain, right here –"

"You need to just let us know when you settle on a date," Richard broke in. "If it's going to be soon, we'll probably need to bump somebody out of the Rose Room at the club. But don't you worry. We are excellent bumpers," he boasted, smiling down the table at Emily.

"Yes, we are," she nodded back at him, her eyes glinting with the thrill of society one-upmanship. "The bumpees never even know what happened to them."

"The main thing is," Richard began, looking seriously at the two of them, "is that your mother and I are completely behind you on this. You have our blessing."

"Oh! That's wonderful!" Rory clasped her hands together and practically bounced in her seat. "Mom, isn't that wonderful?"

"Won-Wonderful," Lorelai stammered. She couldn't bring herself to look at Luke.

"This calls for a celebration!" Richard jovially decreed.

"Gretchen!" Emily called out. "You can bring in the champagne now, please!"

Luke flailed at her elbow and she managed to find the strength to look at him. He seemed very pale.

"I don't – I don't really like champagne," he mumbled at her.

"Babe," she sighed, "the champagne is the least of your worries right now."

Somehow they got through the champagne toasts and the fussy little meringues that tasted like toothpaste. They said their goodbyes and made their way out into the driveway. This time, Lorelai and Rory were on either side of Luke, making sure he stayed upright as they walked to the truck.

Lorelai opened the driver's side door and then the girls looked at each other, trying to figure out how they were going to make this work.

"Can you drive the truck home?" Rory asked soberly.

"If you help me get him in the truck, I'll get us home," Lorelai promised, knowing she had the strength now to do it. Now that this dinner was over, she felt her normal demeanor returning. Once again she could be Wonder Woman if needed.

Luke put a hand out, bracing himself against the truck. He rubbed his face with the other. "I'm – I'm OK," he said. He took a deep breath and his shoulders straightened. "Now that I'm out in the air I feel much better." He took another breath while his fingers loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. "Let's go," he urged, motioning for the girls to get inside.

Once they were past the Hartford city limits, Luke put his foot down, encouraging the truck towards Stars Hollow.

"You know," Rory said a little peevishly, while the truck flew over the miles to home, "I really don't understand why you two are so freaked out. Tonight was really nice. Grandma and Grandpa are on your side. You've got to admit, tonight was amazing."

"Yeah. Amazing," Lorelai said tiredly. She leaned her head against Luke's shoulder and watched the lights of the oncoming traffic. She could feel his muscles tensing and relaxing as he drove them home, his hands firmly turning the steering wheel. She could smell the Scotch on him, which was almost as disturbing as the scent of Nicole's perfume. What was truly amazing, she reflected, was that even after all of the stunts she'd pulled, she still had Luke in her life. She hoped she never found out what it felt like to be without him.

* * *

><p>The next afternoon Lorelai took a quick look over her shoulder at all of the booths and decorations set around the town square. Tiny umbrellas strung up in the gazebo fluttered in the breeze, along with the banner over the street proclaiming STARS HOLLOW APRIL SHOWERS FESTIVAL. She could smell something frying. Life was once again good.<p>

She pulled open the diner's door and marched with purpose to the counter where she hopped onto a stool right under Luke's nose.

He looked at his watch. "You realize I'm going to see you in just a few hours."

"Yep," she agreed, her curls bouncing with her emphatic nod. With all of the dampness in the air today, she hadn't even tried to straighten her hair. Better to just let it do its own thing.

Luke leaned his forearms on the counter beside her and gave her a sly look. "Just couldn't wait to see me again, huh?"

She smothered her urge to gasp. Luke was flirting with her? She cut her eyes at him and felt the smile blooming on her lips. "Just wanted to make sure you're OK. Wanted to make sure you didn't get up this morning and decide to end it all rather than face another dinner in Hartford."

"I'm fine," he said, standing back up and waving his hand in the general direction of Hartford. "I think it's something about that house, though. It's the whole atmosphere, you know? Like, creepy. Full of despair. No wonder you're so traumatized after every dinner there."

"Thank you! At last, somebody understands!"

"It's hard to breathe. It's like there's no air."

"Yes! That's it exactly! It's like they suck the colors out of you."

"But we survived." She finally saw the glint in his eye and caught on that he was teasing her.

"We did survive," she agreed. "And to celebrate our survival we should go out and kick up our heels at the Spring Showers Festival!"

He snorted a laugh. "No."

"Luke, come on! It'll be fun!"

"Fun?" Luke looked across the damp street at the miserable people manning the booths and the rain-tossed decorations. "No," he said again.

"Everyone expects us to stroll around out there. It's romantic. Come out with me."

He glanced again outside and then looked at her, his jaw tightening as he met her eyes. "Where's Rory?" he asked.

"Studying," she groused. "And we'll miss it tonight because we've got our second 'date.' Please, Luke? I never miss a festival. Please?" She put some extra pleading into her voice.

She felt him wavering. "But I'm working," he argued further. "No one else is here right now. I can't leave."

She made a show of turning completely around on the stool, looking everywhere. "Well, you got that right. Nobody _is_ here! Come on! What would it hurt if you took a 15-minute break from the diner? Couldn't you just put a note on the door that you'll be right back?" She tried to do the sad puppy dog eyes that Rory did so well.

"Fine," he grumbled, but she could feel the smile right under the surface of his complaint. He went into the kitchen and grabbed his jacket from a hook on the door. He made a quick note on the back of an order ticket and stuck some tape on it.

He put the note on the door and then opened it. He stopped. He turned to her, his patience wearing thin. "Did you know it's raining out here?"

"I know!" She was bouncing on her toes with joy. "Isn't it great? It's the April Showers Festival and there's actually April showers! How cool is that?"

His jaw did that tightening up thing again. "You realize you're insane, right?"

"Possibly," she grinned at him.

"Hang on," he sighed. He ducked back behind the curtain and was gone for a few minutes. He returned with a huge green and white striped umbrella.

She laughed. "I thought you said you didn't golf."

"I don't." He pulled the door shut as they stepped outside and quickly figured out how to open the umbrella. "Why'd you say that?"

"Because this is a golf umbrella," she told him, stepping underneath it.

"Oh." He looked up at it and shrugged. "Somebody left it here a few years ago. It's been sitting in the lost and found ever since."

"You've got a lost and found?" Lorelai asked, her voice giddy.

"Doesn't every business?"

"Can I look through it?" she asked eagerly.

He looked at her and laughed. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I don't know. It's fun to see what people leave behind."

He shook his head, still smiling. "Sure. Knock yourself out."

"Yay!" she cheered. "So what's the strangest thing you've ever found that wasn't claimed?"

"Dentures," Luke said thoughtfully. "Full set."

"Ick."

"No kidding." They began to cross the street to the square. "How about you?"

"Birth control pills," she said at once. "Only three days gone."

His eyebrows shot up. "That must have been an interesting trip."

She giggled. "That's what I've always thought."

They came up beside the gazebo and Lorelai tried to decide which way to go first. She didn't notice that Luke was glaring out at the weather.

"You know, I just don't get this whole walkin' in the rain business!" he fumed, already well on his way to a rant. "It's damp, you get chilly, your shoes get wet and then they take three days to finally dry out! You run into people because no one's watching where they're goin', because everybody's watching down at their feet for puddles! Then you've always got some idiot who tries to poke your eye out with his umbrella spoke! Not to mention the fact that you'll probably end up with a cold after being outside and getting all wet!" He looked at her, daring her to dispute him. "I don't know why in the world anybody would think this was romantic!"

She tucked her hair back behind her ear. She took his free arm and wrapped it around her waist. She put her own arm around his back and gave him a yank, bringing him hip-to-hip with her. Or hip-to-thigh, actually, since her bright pink rain boots didn't have much of a heel and she was inches shorter than usual. She smiled up at him now.

"That's why it's romantic," she explained.

He quickly ducked his head down to stare at his shoes, but she could see the amusement on his face. "Oh," he said, understanding.

"Yes, '_Oh_,'" she agreed. "So do we look at crafts or food first?"

"Neither?" Luke suggested hopefully.

"Crafts it is!" Lorelai proclaimed, tugging him along at her side.

The constant drizzle had persuaded most Stars Hollow residents to stay home, and the weather and lack of visitors had caused a lot of the booths to close up. A few hardy souls with extra-large tarps were still open for business.

"Luke! Look at this! We've got to get one of these for the diner!" She was bubbling over with excitement. They were standing in front of a booth where everything displayed was made out of cutlery. Angels were fashioned out of spoons. Reindeer out of forks. There were bracelets and rings. And the most perfect thing she'd ever seen for Luke: A wind chime made with forks, knives and spoons dangling down.

"Lorelai." She could tell right away that he hated it; thought it was ridiculous. That made her love it more. "Where could I put it?" he asked, trying to be logical. "We'd all bump our heads on it, and there's no wind to make it chime."

"We could hang it outside," she suggested eagerly. "Right over the door. You could hear it every time the door opened."

"No."

"But it's perfect," she argued playfully. "It's got forks and spoons and knives on it! You've got forks and spoons and knives in the diner. See? Perfect match!"

"No," he said, smiling apologetically at the man staffing the booth and trying to draw Lorelai away.

"We'll be back!" she called to the man.

"No, we won't," he said under his breath.

They looked around at the other offerings. Luke convinced her that she didn't need to fill a plastic bottle with colored sand. He didn't protest, however, when she stuffed a couple of bills into the jar at the Humane Shelter's stand and even put in some money of his own.

"Softie," she teased him. She'd noticed that his arm had come right back around her waist as soon as he'd put his wallet away. Not that she was complaining.

That smile, the one that she was getting very used to seeing, was struggling onto his lips again. "Just don't want to look bad in front of you," he said lightly.

"Uh huh," she said. They started picking their way across the wet grass to where the food vendors were set up.

"Have you tried to talk to Jess yet?" Lorelai ventured.

"I've tried," he sighed. "He's not talkin'." His arm tightened a little bit more around her waist, she thought without him even realizing it. "I called Liz, though."

"Really?" Lorelai was surprised.

"I asked her point-blank if what Jess said was true. It was," he said, not waiting for Lorelai to ask a follow-up. "He was in third grade and she was bopping around, trying to avoid an angry ex-boyfriend. She said it was more like a month by the time the officials caught up with her and pointed out that he hadn't been in school. She hadn't noticed, what with the drama going on in her love life." Luke's voice was bitterly sarcastic.

"Wow. Poor Jess." Lorelai shook her head, picturing Rory at that age.

"So I asked her if there was anything else I should know about." He took a deep breath and blew it out. "Other than the time they spent a week camping out in her car because she didn't have rent money, and the time she left him with a batch of her freaky friends because she got busted holding some loser boyfriend's pot stash, they've lived the American dream."

"Oh, Luke!" Lorelai stopped in her tracks. "Oh, poor Jess!"

"Yeah," he said, resigned. "The only good thing is that she does seem to realize now that she did not do a good job raising him. Says she's sorry. Says she wants better for him. Says that means me, because I'm 'normal.'"

Lorelai had to smile at that. "Yes, you are the very most normal Unabomber I've ever known."

"Anyway," he continued, "at least now I understand why Stars Hollow High almost didn't admit him because his school records were so messed up."

"I've thought he's seemed happier the last few days," she speculated. "I've heard him laughing with Rory, and he's almost kinda smiled at me once or twice."

Luke nodded in agreement. "Yeah, he's definitely not as belligerent. It's almost as if all of us believing him took some of the pressure off of him, or something."

"How about Liz? Is there anything we could do to help her?"

Luke shrugged. "She claims to be doing OK. She's got a job. Says she met a good guy." He sighed. "Guess time will tell on that. But I told her to call me if things get rough again."

"And you should keep calling her," Lorelai pointed out.

"I'll call her," he agreed, again with the smile.

They reached the small line of food carts and Lorelai sniffed appreciatively. "OK, what do we want first?"

"You realize you could just come into the diner and I'd make you anything you want, right?"

"But then it's not real festival food. We're not eating it outside, with grease dripping down our chins. It doesn't taste the same," she argued. "I want that authentic festival flavor."

"How about that?" Luke indicated a booth selling large fried pieces of dough covered with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar. The sign called them Elephant Ears.

"Too messy," Lorelai decided. "How about something on a stick?" She pulled them down the line, looking at the other offerings. "Hey, you want an official April Showers drink? It's blue!"

"I'm not drinkin' a blue drink," Luke insisted. His eyes went back to the elephant ears trailer. "You sure you don't want one of those?"

Lorelai looked at the cart and then at Luke, her brain making the connection. She smiled slyly. "_You_ want one of those, don't you?"

"Me? Nah," Luke scoffed. "But if you wanted one, you know, I'd be willing to, you know, share it with you."

She caught the small note of eagerness in his voice and she laughed, delighted to finally have a clue to one of Luke's weaknesses. "Sure, let's share one," she agreed.

They watched as it fried up in the vat of oil. The woman fished it out with a pair of tongs and laid it on a paper plate, overhanging it by several inches all around. She dusted it with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Lorelai took possession of the treat and they stepped aside. "I'll hold it," Lorelai offered, since Luke had the umbrella, "and we can each eat from one side." She held the plate up so he could take a bite.

"Good," he mumbled, chewing. "Hot, though," he warned.

She took a bite of the chewy-yet-crispy treat. She felt the sugar rain down over her chin and jacket. "We're going to be a mess," she observed, laughing.

She watched Luke take another skillful bite. "Looks to me like you've done this before," she guessed.

He licked at his lips, where a secretive smile played. "Maybe."

"Some eighth-grade hottie?" she questioned, teasing. "Rachel?" she asked, more seriously.

His eyes met hers, landed briefly on her sugar-encrusted lips, then looked over her shoulder at the church. "My mom," he said quietly.

Those two words hit her squarely in her chest. "Oh," she said, softly. "She had a sweet tooth, huh?" she asked gently.

"She liked the cinnamon," Luke revealed.

She took another bite and nodded, trying not to get all misty-eyed over the fact that Luke was actually reminiscing with her. She stopped chewing abruptly. "That's why you put extra cinnamon in your apple pies, isn't it?" The more she talked with him, the more she felt like she understood what had made him into the man he was.

He looked at her sharply, but just as quickly relaxed. "Yeah, I guess I do." He thought for a few moments longer, then smiled at her as he shrugged his shoulders. "Never really thought about it before, but yeah. Funny how sometimes you don't even realize what influences you."

They finished up the elephant ear and found a trash can for the empty paper plate, brushing the sugary leftovers from their clothes and fingers while they stood there, laughing at what a mess they'd made.

"I should be getting back," Luke said, and Lorelai swore she could hear some reluctance in his voice.

"You sure you don't want the wind chimes?" Lorelai asked as they started across the square once more. "My treat."

"No thanks," he said, giving her waist a squeeze. "I think I can live without them."

"Your loss."

They came up on a puddle in the walkway. Lorelai went up on her tiptoes, planning to span it, while at the same time Luke tugged on her waist, trying to get her step around it on his side. The result was that she spun around off-balance and smacked right into his chest, her hands flat against him.

There were a lot of possible explanations about why what happened next happened. It could have been because they'd been pretending to kiss each other for over a week now and they'd just gotten used to it. Maybe the romance of walking together in the rain had gotten to them. Or maybe it was just a sugar rush from the elephant ear they'd just shared.

Lorelai stared at her hands, flat against his old green jacket. She looked up at his face and her toes pushed her up from the ground, demanding that she reach his mouth. She didn't have far to go because he was bending his head towards hers, apparently with the same goal in mind. Their mouths met and she slid her hands upwards, encircling his neck with her arms, trying to latch him to her forever.

This kiss blew the one in the diner away completely. It woke things in her in ways she didn't even know was possible. She pressed even closer to him, greedily trying to get to experience every part of his mouth; his lips; his tongue. She suddenly realized he was licking the leftover cinnamon and sugar from her lips and she wanted to laugh, but she needed more of him too badly. She wanted to climb up onto him and climb into him and somehow claim him forever. She didn't want it to end.

He dropped the umbrella so that he could grasp her back, pulling her into him. One of his hands worked under her curls, holding the back of her head as he plundered her mouth. There was no telling how long they would have been content to stand there, lost in each other, but the wind picked up and the spring drizzle suddenly became denser. The cold rain made them gasp and pull apart, stunned at what they'd just done.

"That was ― that was ―" Lorelai was grasping for an accurate description as she tried to pull in some air, her heart ready to pound itself out of her chest.

"Inappropriate?" Luke suggested grimly, grabbing the umbrella and quickly getting it back over their heads.

"I was going to say incredible," she said, her voice a challenge.

He was shaking his head, his face set. He wouldn't look at her. "We're blurring the lines here. We need to remember what's real and what's not. I'd hate for us to accidentally cross over into something while we're play-acting and have that blow us up forever. It's not worth it." His voice was determined; his face stony.

She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to point out that the caliber of the kiss demanded closer inspection of their feelings. But then she remembered he was actually dating someone else. She remembered that they _were_ play-acting, no matter how real the kiss had seemed.

"Nicole's a lucky girl," she said flippantly, trying to bury the hurt she was feeling.

Luke scoffed as they started towards the diner. "I could say the same about Hank."

Lorelai laughed in disbelief. "Hank? You think I've kissed Hank?" She grabbed a handful of his jacket and made him look at her. "What? You think I leaped over the bar and planted one on him?"

His face conceded her point. "Well, he wants to kiss you," he grumbled.

"No he doesn't," Lorelai disputed. "Practically the first thing he told me was that he doesn't date anyone from the bar."

Luke stopped and stared at her pointedly. "And why did he tell you that?"

"Because he thought I was ― He thought ―" Lorelai sighed in defeat. "He thought I was flirting with him," she admitted. "But I wasn't! I was just being friendly!"

Luke was shaking his head again, looking down at the ground. "He wants to rip my face off," he informed her bitterly.

Lorelai half-laughed, half-gasped. "He does not!"

"Yeah, he does. I can tell." Luke started them walking again. "It's a guy thing," he added.

Lorelai thought back on the way the two guys had sized each other. "Well, if he does, I think it's more because he didn't understand why you'd left me there, not because he has any sort of feelings about me."

They'd reached the door of the diner by then. Luke pulled out his key and turned it in the lock. His hand stilled on the doorknob. "I _didn't_ want to leave you there," he said quietly.

"I know," she assured him. "It worked out fine."

He nodded and stepped inside, doing his best not to look at her.

"Thanks for coming out with me," she told him. "Thanks for the elephant ear, even if I did have to share it." She put her hand on his arm and rubbed it affectionately. "Thanks for the kiss," she added, very softly.

He chuckled ruefully. "You're welcome." He finally looked at her. "Here. Take the umbrella with you."

"OK," she agreed, taking it from his hand. "Just out of curiosity, how do I rate?"

"Rate with what?" he asked, frowning.

She took a step down from the door. "On the kissing. Compared to Nicole, I mean. Better? Worse?"

"I'm not discussing that with you," he growled. She opened her mouth to persuade him and he added a heartfelt "_Ever_!" before she had a chance to say anything else.

She laughed and backed down the rest of the steps. "See you at 6?"

"I'll be there at 6," he agreed. "I'll probably see you at 6:15."

"I might just surprise you," she said, and started for home. "Hopefully the same way you keep surprising me," she added to herself as she walked down the sidewalk, dodging puddles and other people's umbrellas.

* * *

><p>At 6 o'clock on the dot, Lorelai opened her front door to Luke. "See?" she said, her hand indicating her fully-dressed self.<p>

The storm front that had brought them three days of grayness and rain had pushed through and now the sun was blazing to a close in a beautifully clear sky. For the first time the air felt like it actually contained a promise of spring.

Lorelai had picked out a flouncy pink top to wear. Silver threads were shot through it, making it gleam as she moved. She had on dangly silver earrings and black slacks and high black heels.

"You look like the sky," Luke said. He clamped his mouth shut immediately, sorry the words had escaped.

"What?" she laughed.

He turned and pointed towards the horizon, where the setting sun was making a vivid pink streak in the darkening sky. A star was just visible in the darkness, a small dot of twinkling silver.

"You look pretty," he gruffly clarified.

"Thank you." She was feeling elated at getting such a compliment out of Luke. She grabbed her pink coat and her purse and they walked to the truck.

"You look very nice, too," she told him while they settled inside.

He made a noise of displeasure. "This is the third time I've had to get dressed up in just over a week. I don't think I've ever had on a suit and tie this much."

"It looks good on you, though."

"This keeps up, you'll have to go buy me more dress up stuff," he complained.

"Just say the word. I'm happy to lend my shopping expertise whenever it's needed." She looked at the town as they drove through. The more spring-like weather had brought out ample townsfolk to enjoy the festival. Lights were twinkling all over the square. She wished they were staying in Stars Hollow. She wished they were walking through the softly-lit area again, their arms wrapped around each other. She wished she could get another kiss.

"So where are you two headed tonight?" she asked, deliberately trying to bring herself back to reality.

"Some other restaurant she wanted to try," he said. "I'm ready though tonight. Had my peanut butter sandwich before I left home."

She chuckled at that. "Good for you."

They talked and teased each other and sometimes sat in comfortable silence. It didn't seem long at all before they were entering Litchfield.

"You sure this is where you want to go again?" Luke asked, gliding to a stop across from the Liar's Club.

"Yep. I know the lay of the land now," Lorelai assured him.

Luke put the truck into park and scowled at the building. "You want me to come in with you?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Be sure and tell Hank hello from me," he said sardonically.

She'd taken off her seatbelt but instead of opening the door she slid over against him. He looked surprised but quickly reciprocated the warm hug she gave him. She made sure to rub the wrist where she'd dabbed some extra cologne along his neck.

_Ha! Sniff that, Nicole!_

"And you tell Nicole hello from me," she said sweetly.

She put her hand up to his face, caressing his freshly-shaved cheek and jaw with the gentlest of touches. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand, his mouth parting slightly. When she pulled back his eyes flew open and she could see the flicker of disappointment flare over his face.

"Have a good time," she told him, getting out of the truck.

"Be careful," he muttered. "I'll see you soon."

"Call me on my cell if you need to," she added, and waved merrily as she crossed the street. She smiled smugly to herself, knowing that he watched her until she entered the building.

The restaurant was just as packed as the week before. She hung up her coat and fought her way over to the bar.

Hank saw her as soon as she stepped through the door. "Lorelai!" he called out to her in greeting. "Darlin', don't tell me you're here drinking all alone again!"

"Yes, I am," she confirmed as she climbed up onto a bar stool, smiling. She could actually feel her eyes sparkling with happiness. "But I'm pretty sure that this will be the last time."


	6. Birthday Blues

**A/N**: A big thank you to **MentalPicture,** whose inspired rant about law books provided Lorelai's delightful daydream in this chapter.

* * *

><p>A young woman was cautiously descending the stairs at the Independence Inn, shuffling down one step at a time. The backpack on her shoulders made Lorelai think of Rory, and the gigantic book in her arms that was weighing her down reminded her of Jacob Marley in <em>A Christmas Carol<em>, trying to move about while dragging those tremendous chains along with him.

"Here, let me help!" Lorelai offered, trotting up the stairs to her. She reached out to take the book.

"This is really heavy," the woman warned her. She let Lorelai put her hands under the book but she didn't release all of its weight to her. Even so, Lorelai staggered under the load.

"Good God!" Lorelai huffed, carefully backing down the stairs. "What is this thing?"

'It's one of my law books," the guest explained. She blew out a breath, ruffling the blond bangs on her forehead. "I can take it now," she said, as they reached the landing in the lobby. "I'm used to it."

Lorelai stepped back, rubbing her arms. "Let me get one of the porters to help you."

"No, really," the young woman assured her. "It's no big deal. I do this every day. I have other books that are even bigger and heavier."

Lorelai quickly got in front of her and rushed to the entrance so that she could hold it open for the encumbered girl. "This is a law book?" she questioned.

The young woman merely nodded, saving her breath.

"And every law student has these huge books to haul around?" Lorelai questioned further.

"Oh, yeah," the girl sighed. "You can't get away from them."

A mischievous smile lit up Lorelai's face as she envisioned the huge book bearing down on top of Nicole's tiny little head. "Good luck with your studies," she wished her departing guest.

She practically skipped back over to the check-in desk. She found a stray piece of paper and quickly scribbled a series of drawings showing Nicole being slowly pushed down into the ground with the gigantic book on her head. It kind of looked like a snowman melting into a puddle. 'Help me!' she wrote in a balloon from Nicole's mouth and then tittered at her artistic creation.

She became aware that Michel was hovering just beyond her peripheral vision. He was continuously running his fingers over the crease in his pants, tugging down his cuffs, and straightening his tie. She knew that the fidgeting at his clothes meant he had something he wished to say.

"What is it, Michel?" she asked, bored, and not turning to him. She added a couple of embellishments to her stick-figure drawing instead.

"There is something I need to tell you," he muttered.

"So tell," she shrugged.

"Not here!" he said, his voice cautious. "This is not something you would want me to say out here!"

There was a particular urgency in his voice that got her attention. Her head came up and even a quick glance at him showed her that he was agitated and genuinely nervous about something.

"Do you want to go in my office?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what we should do," he instantly agreed, and marched towards her door.

Still frowning, she placed the little sign that said 'Please ring for service' on the desk, and followed him into her small office.

He was already sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk. He was still running his thumb and forefinger over and over the crease in his pants, his eyes carefully not meeting hers.

"Should I shut the door?" she asked, meaning that as a calculated teasing remark.

"Yes. Yes, you should shut the door!" he agreed emphatically, surprising her.

"OK," she said, confused, and crossed in front of him to lean back against her desk. "So you've got my attention. What's going on?"

His eyes left the crease in his pants and traveled around the room, still avoiding her gaze. "I do not know how to tell you this thing," he said, quietly.

All at once Lorelai realized that he was truly distressed and she pushed away from her desk and squatted down next to his chair, her hand on his arm. "It's not your mom, is it?" She gasped, now really worried. "Or Paw-Paw or Chin-Chin? They're OK, aren't they?"

He finally looked at her and the pity she saw in his eyes stunned her.

"I am not good at these things. Let me go and tell Sookie. She could then come and tell you. That would be better, no?"

"No," Lorelai said firmly, her hand still on his arm. "You tell me. Now."

He started to fidget again. "It is that man. Your diner man," he spat out.

"Luke?" Lorelai felt fear starting to fill up every space inside of her. She hadn't had time to go to the diner this morning. Had something happened to Luke, and she just hadn't heard yet? She gripped Michel's arm harder. "Is he OK? Michel, tell me!"

He snorted with disgust. "Oh, I imagine he is just fine," he said with sarcasm.

"Michel!" she begged.

Michel looked her briefly in the eyes before deliberately turning away from her face. "I met friends last night, at a club in Hartford. It was a nice club. Many people were there. Your man ― your Luke ― he was there."

"Luke?" Lorelai was dumbfounded. "Luke was at a club in Hartford?"

"He was there." Michel wet his lips nervously. "He was there with someone. Someone … who was not you."

"Oh." It was all she could think to say. Her brain seemed to have turned to mush.

"He was … He was kissing this person."

"Oh," she said again. She blinked and looked around. At some point she'd collapsed and was now sitting flat on her behind.

"I am …" Michel took a breath and clasped his hands together. "I am sorry to have to tell you this."

She grabbed the arm of his chair and pulled herself up. "It's OK, Michel," she said dully. "I know. I know there's someone else." She walked slowly back behind her desk.

"You know?" Now he was staring at her and she was the one who couldn't meet his eyes. "This is acceptable to you?"

"We're … we're working on it," she stammered out.

"This does not sound like you!" Michel leaned over on her desk, trying to get her to focus on him. "You should not be blasé about this! You should be fighting this woman. You should be kicking his flannel-clad derrière! You are not acting like yourself! What has happened to you?"

She was nervously twisting her fingers together. "This thing between me and Luke, it was sort of spur-of-the-moment, you know? He had other things in his life. And now he needs to deal with them. He needs to decide …" Her voice trailed off. From what Michel had said, it sounded like he _had_ made a decision. Her eyes went out-of-focus and the pictures hanging on the opposite wall all blurred together.

Michel stood up. "I am sorry that this is causing you pain." He went to the door and tugged down his cuffs again. "But this is not right. What he is doing, it is not right. You need to let him know it is not right."

As he opened the door she managed to speak. "Thank you," she said simply. "I know it was hard for you to tell me this, and well, only a good friend would have been willing to do it. You're a good friend, Michel."

He straightened his tie, his eyes on the doorknob. "That will be another secret we share."

She nodded and he opened the door and walked out, not giving her another glance. He shut the door behind him and she collapsed back in the chair as her brain tried to make sense of what he'd just told her.

Because it didn't make sense! It wasn't possible! She stared down at her hands and her thoughts tumbled over the interactions she and Luke had shared over the last few days, trying to find some crack; some flaw that she'd missed.

Saturday night's return to Stars Hollow had been very nice. He'd told her about the restaurant but had barely mentioned Nicole. There'd been no talk of a third date. When she hugged him good night she could still smell her own perfume on his neck.

Sunday night he'd surprised her by showing up at her house with leftover chicken salad sandwiches and some cherry pie. He'd watched TV with her and Rory, and later, she'd been the one to wake up with her head on his chest, his arms curled protectively around her. She'd walked him sleepily to the door, and there'd been a moment of toe-curling intensity where she really thought she was going to get another April Showers-level kiss. But he seemed instead to rein himself in and they'd merely said goodnight, even though her heart had pounded long after he'd left.

Monday ― yesterday ― had been crazily hectic, and she'd only had time to blow in and out of the diner at breakfast. Nothing had seemed off between them, though, and she'd even thought that the dutiful peck of a kiss he'd given her from behind the counter was more lingering than normal.

So how did they get from that to him taking Nicole out on Monday night? How did he go from wanting to kiss her to kissing Nicole at a club in Hartford? How could he have hidden it from her? How could he have cheated on her?

Her stomach suddenly heaved and she scrambled up from her desk and lurched towards her window. She pushed it open frantically and pressed her forehead against the screen, gulping in the fresh spring air, her fingers wrapped around the window ledge.

By the time the sick feeling in her stomach settled her fingers were numb from gripping the ledge so hard. She hoped she didn't have the pattern from the screen imprinted into her forehead. She took one more breath of the mind-clearing outside air and found that the added oxygen made a spark of anger flare up instead.

The anger burned through the queasiness. It made short work of any doubts or rational thought. It demanded action.

She grabbed her purse and stalked into the lobby.

"Goin' out," she muttered to Michel as she passed by the desk.

"Give him hell," Michel advised, sounding satisfied.

The anger kept her focused only on getting to the diner. It prevented her from thinking about any facts. It barred logic from making an appearance. It kept the future hidden. All it allowed was the burning desire to confront him about his unfaithfulness. She wanted to rub his face into the hurt he'd caused her. She wanted him to know he couldn't treat her like that.

She slammed the Jeep's door as hard as she could but it didn't make her feel any better. She stormed into the diner. Caesar was behind the counter, restocking supplies as he waited on the few customers present at this time of day. She paused at the end of the counter and noises from back in the kitchen told her where Luke was.

"Lorelai, don't!" Caesar warned her, but she was already in the kitchen.

Luke was washing up some pans in the big sink. He turned when he heard her walk in, his face registering surprise when he saw it was her. "You can't be in here," he said immediately.

"We need to talk," she said, barely able to get the civil words out past the huge lump of anger in her throat. She was already starting to pace.

"Well, you're in here now," Luke said, shrugging. "You might as well go ahead." He went back to the scrubbing.

"No, no, Luke," she said with a laugh that sounded cruel and taunting and nothing at all like herself. "I'm sure you don't want to talk about this here, because there's going to be yelling and screaming and I'm going to be very, very loud. You know how very loud I can be, right? So is this really the place where you want that all to happen?"

He grabbed a towel and was already starting to dry his hands as he turned to face her. "What's goin' on?" he asked, concerned.

"I hear you had a really nice time in Hartford last night," she shot out at him, her voice saturated in sarcasm. She couldn't hold it back any longer.

Guilt pushed the concern off his face. "Oh," he mumbled.

"Yes, 'oh,'" she mocked. She was pacing faster and faster. "Did you really think I wouldn't hear about it? Did you really think you could make-out with that skinny bitch and I wouldn't know?"

"Don't call her that," he said sharply.

Luke defending Nicole made pain shoot through her middle and she bent over, her hands grasping her knees. "Oh, my God," she whispered, agonized.

"Hey." His hand was on her back. "Come on, talk to me here. Who told you about Hartford?"

That made her stand up straight. "Really? That's the part of the story you care about? You cheat on me and all you want to discuss is who told me?"

His face was composed as he blinked twice at her. "I didn't cheat on you," he said, calmly.

Suddenly the truth of that statement washed through her. She could acknowledge the fact of it, but she was still dealing with the pain it had evoked.

"Fine! You lied to me, then!" she whined.

Again he looked at her evenly. "I didn't lie to you, either."

His extreme calmness and the annoying truthfulness thing were driving her crazy. "You ― you jeopardized everything! You took her out in public without consulting me! You behaved irresponsibly with her! You could have ruined everything! You could have hurt … Rory!" Her fists were clenched and she was gulping for breath.

He looked down at the floor with his hands at his hips. She could see him drawing his thoughts together before he finally raised his head and looked at her.

"I've been patient with this whole ridiculous scheme, Lorelai. You wanted to do the play-acting and I went along with it. You need to remember that you promised me it wasn't going to interfere with my real life. So far, I haven't had one date with Nicole that didn't involve working you into it. I thought it was only fair that I give her one night that didn't also include you. I thought she at least deserved that. Don't you?"

She felt like something was getting ready to explode inside of her. She couldn't reconcile the rightness of what he was saying with the agony of what she was feeling. "I guess," she muttered out, sulkily. "But you should have told me."

He raised an eyebrow at her, his arms crossed over his chest. "I didn't think it really concerned you."

She was trying to find some sort of middle ground where she could still make a point. "You feel the need to kiss her out in public, yeah, it concerns me!"

For the first time he looked uncomfortable. "It wasn't like that."

"Enlighten me," she mocked, feeling raw.

"The place was a dance club, Lorelai!" He looked with disgust off to the side as he apparently recalled the experience. "Can you imagine me in a place like that?" he demanded.

"No," she agreed. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Laugh, because the thought of him in such a place was ridiculous. Cry, because she'd been the one to lure him there.

"Well, I guess I looked as out-of-place as I felt, and she leaned over and teased me about it and gave me a kiss," he grumbled. "That's all it was!"

"OK," she said shakily, the urge to fight finally leaving her. She felt deflated. They stared at each other for a minute. Finally she looked away, her fingers jerking her ponytail tighter at the base of her skull, desperate for something for her hands to do. "Just tell me next time, OK?"

They were both quiet and a cool breeze of reality seemed to blow over her. She cringed, hearing again in her mind the crazy talk that had spilled out of her moments before. She realized that he'd been right all along, about how this pretend thing needed to be finished. Otherwise she was afraid she'd end up in a psycho ward, babbling about betrayals from a lover that only existed in her imagination.

She desperately felt like she needed to save face and deflect the outlandish accusations she'd been throwing around. She landed on what to her was the major happening of the week.

"Well, you'll just have to make it up to me on Thursday night," she informed him magnanimously, slathering on all of the coquettish charm she had at her disposal.

"Oh … Yeah … Um …" he tried to start, all of the discomfort he didn't show before now abundantly apparent. He repositioned the hat on his head. "About Thursday night …"

"No," she said, a big gaping hole of pain opening in her again. "No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no!"

And just like that, Crazy Town was back.

"She asked me the first time we went out if I'd go with her to this big client dinner thing, and I said yes, since things seemed to be going OK between us. I hadn't looked at a calendar or anything. I didn't realize it was your birthday, Lorelai. I mean, I'm sorry, but I've already promised her I'd go. I can't back out if it now."

"But it's my _birthday,_" she explained plaintively.

"I'm sorry, but I've already committed to this. I've got to follow-through. This is something I need to do first."

"It's my birthday," she said again. Maybe he just didn't understand. "Rory and Sookie and everyone else think you're taking me out to celebrate. They've all backed off on their plans so that we can be together. You can't do this to me!"

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "You're just going to have to believe me that this is something I've got to do." He sounded grim and rubbed a hand over his face. "Look, let me get that over with, and then I'll make it up to you, OK?" He looked at her hopefully. "Friday night you'll be with your folks, but Saturday night I'll take you out, OK? We'll celebrate your birthday for real on Saturday. How's that sound?"

"It sounds like I get to sit alone on my birthday while my boyfriend goes out with someone else!" she shot back bitterly. "That's how it sounds to me!"

His jaw tensed and he suddenly looked angry. "Not your boyfriend," he returned. "You want me to play make-believe with you for Rory, right? That's what this is, right? Just a smokescreen for Rory? So I fail to see how my plans for Thursday night in any way affect Rory."

Damn him and his penchant for logic! She wanted to scream and yell and stomp her feet like a three-year-old. She wanted to grab the sprayer from the sink and douse him with water. She wanted to tell him that the make-believe with him felt more real than any actual relationship she'd ever had.

"But it's my _birthday_," she said, her voice breaking. She bit her lip against the sadness. She no longer had the desire to argue.

He flinched. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'll make it up to you, I promise. But you understand, right, why I have to do this?" He sounded hopeful.

"No," she said, totally defeated. Without looking at him again she left the kitchen and dragged her battered ego back to her car.

* * *

><p>Lorelai was a mess for the next two days. She found excuses to stay away from the diner. She was cranky and argumentative and her sarcasm level hit a peak previously unknown, even for her. Sookie thought she was upset about turning a year older. Rory thought that her own overloaded schedule for the week was making her mother feel abandoned by her doting daughter. Both of them tried everything they could to make her feel better while she could only fume inwardly, gagged by her own rules from telling them the truth.<p>

On Thursday she tried to act pleased when she saw the 'happy birthday' Rory had spelled out on the kitchen table for her in Mallomars. She tried to be appropriately surprised and delighted when the staff at the Inn, led by Sookie, crashed into her office singing and bearing cake. She tried to be fawningly happy over the admittedly swoon-worthy dead drummer leather coat Tobin presented her.

But all she was really thinking about was that something would change. He'd cancel with Nicole. The phone would ring, or she'd suddenly look up and he'd be at the door. He'd tell her it was all a mistake. He'd say that there'd be no way he could take someone else out on her birthday. Of course he'd be with her. It was her birthday!

Now a glance at the clock told her that the time limit on that scenario had expired. She was sitting at her vanity dressed only in her robe and panties. She'd finished her make-up, including too much eyeliner, at least 20 minutes ago. She needed to face facts.

She got up without thinking too much about it and grabbed a black dress out of her closet. It was too short, too tight, and too sparkly. The neckline was cut straight across her collarbone but dipped dangerously in the back. It didn't look like a dress a girl would wear to go out to eat a birthday dinner with her boyfriend. It looked like the type of dress a girl would wear when she was looking for a boy. Any boy.

She bent at the waist and ran her fingers through her curls, tousling them. She put on her heels and went downstairs.

Rory heard her and came out, her thumb marking a spot in her literature text. Her smile faded into alarm as she took in her mother.

"Um, Mom," she started, hesitantly, just as Luke knocked on the door.

"It's fine," Lorelai said dully, grabbing her coat and purse as she headed towards the door.

"Happy ―" Luke started to say, but his words faded off as he registered her outfit and her sullen expression.

"Let's go," she said, and pushed past him.

"Have a good time," Rory offered tentatively. "Luke, Mom seems ―"

"I know," Luke acknowledged. "I'll take care of it. Don't worry."

By the time he reached the truck she was already trying to wrestle the door open. He reached over her, wanting to help. She knocked her shoulder into him, driving him back.

"I don't need your help in getting into your freakin' truck!" she snapped.

He stepped back, putting his hands into his pockets. She could feel him just watching her. "OK," he finally said, and moved around to the driver's side.

She climbed in and he started the truck. They drove through town and had turned onto the highway before he spoke.

"So this is the way it's going to be, huh?" he asked. He didn't sound angry. Or hurt. Or confused. He sounded disappointed. Disappointed in her.

Her thumbs pressed down into the beads and sequins sown onto the clutch purse she was carrying. She wished that the sparkly things had sharp edges to them; sharp enough to poke through her skin and bleed some of the conflicting emotions out of her. Her brain understood completely that Luke had a perfect right to take out whomever he pleased whenever he pleased. But her heart didn't. Her heart only knew what it felt. Her heart only knew that it felt right when he was with her.

"I don't mean to be a pain," she said. The words nearly strangled her as she said them. She wasn't used to being this open and transparent. "I just don't understand why you have to take her out tonight."

Luke's hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. "I'm asking for one night here! One night to go make things right! I've been letting you call all of the shots for two weeks! I don't understand why it can't ever lean my way! Why can't we try doing it my way for once?"

His words crawled into her storm-tossed ego and made themselves at home. "By all means, do it your way," she said frostily, and huddled herself against the door, as far from him as possible.

He sighed and muttered something under his breath and doggedly kept driving.

As soon as the truck stopped moving she yanked open the door. "Have a good time," she said over her shoulder to him, being a snot.

"Lorelai, wait!" He dove out of the cab and caught her on the sidewalk. He grasped her upper arm, his thumb rubbing a soft circle there. She chanced a look at his face and saw the worried creases on his forehead as his gaze analyzed her outfit again. "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

She had to laugh at that. A nice, mocking laugh. "Gee, I don't know, Luke. You know me so well! Do you think I'll do something stupid?"

He looked very tired as he shook his head. "You haven't heard a thing I've said to you, have you?" He sighed, quickly checking his watch. "Look, there's no time now. Just behave yourself and I'll be back to get you as fast as I can, all right? Have a nice dinner and talk to Hank and I'll be back before you know it, and then we'll talk on the way home. Can you just do that?" He sounded cranky and exhausted.

And suddenly, once again, she was totally ashamed of herself and how she was treating him. "I'm fine," she said, her voice toneless. "And I'm sorry. Go. Go have a nice time. Really. I'm fine." She commanded her lips to pull themselves into a smile.

He looked at her doubtfully. "Let me walk you in."

"No!" She didn't know why exactly, but she knew she wouldn't be able to bear it if he walked her inside and then left her in there. Much better for her to do it on her own. "No, you're already late. Just let me go." She pulled away and stepped off the curb.

"Don't be stupid!" He called the warning after her.

She stepped inside the restaurant and discovered that Thursday nights were different from the packed Saturday nights she was used to. More businessmen; fewer couples. She hung up her coat and smiled at the hostess, someone different from the harried girl she normally saw. It was a relief to see Hank behind the bar. She didn't know what she would have done if he hadn't been there.

"Lorelai!" he called out to her. "Didn't expect to see you tonight!" He quieted and his forehead creased into the same lines as Luke's as he contemplated her outfit. "You're very … sparkly … tonight," he finally ventured.

She hopped up onto a stool, not caring so much this time if the good china was protected. "Needed to dress to match my personality," she said, mocking herself.

He looked at her, puzzled. "Sure," he said, apparently deciding to give her a pass. "You want the usual?" His hand was already going to the shaker.

"Not tonight." She reached for her purse. "I think I'd like some shots," she requested, pulling out some bills. "Tequila."

Again he looked at her, trying to puzzle out what was different. "You tryin' to get drunk?" he asked teasingly, smiling slightly.

"Yep!" she confirmed, holding her chin up belligerently.

He looked surprised. "What's goin' on?"

"It's my birthday!" she informed him, grandly. "It's my birthday, and I'm here alone, while he's out with _her._" She heard her voice threatening to break, and it made her mad. "I can't think of a better reason to sit here and get drunk, can you?" She tried to say it gaily, with bravery and bravado, but she couldn't carry it off. She sounded pathetic. She bent her head, staring at the white cocktail napkin under her nose, biting her lip that was feeling raw underneath the coating of gloss.

"Lorelai." There was a pause, and then she felt his hand gently cradling the back of her head. "You know you're in love with the guy, right?"

She bit her lip harder than ever and she squeezed her eyes shut tight, but she felt one tear fight its way out. She opened her eyes in time to see it splash down on the napkin, the flimsy paper product still managing to absorb the physical sign of her heartbreak.

"Yes," she said, her voice wavering all over the one-syllable word as she finally admitted it.

He stilled, and then gave her tousled curls a comforting pat.

"First shot's on the house," he said, nonchalantly, trying not to call more attention to her pain as he moved down the bar to get it.

"Thanks," she said, and finally found the courage to look up.

* * *

><p>She really wasn't in that bad of shape.<p>

She knew stuff. Lots o' stuff.

She knew, for example, that Hank had taken his own sweet time refilling her shot glass as the evening wore on. She knew he'd brought her bowls of pretzels and appetizer samplers, encouraging her eat and soak up some of the booze. She knew when he'd switched her over to Irish coffee, although she hadn't requested it, and she knew it was mostly coffee; very little Irish. She knew he'd chased off several guys who'd wanted to come over and talk to her. She knew her cell phone had been ringing in her purse over and over during the past hour. She even knew who it was. She just didn't want to talk to him.

The one thing she didn't know was that Luke had entered the bar. She didn't know until she felt his hand on her shoulder.

"I've been calling and calling you!" he complained, exasperated. "Why didn't you answer your phone?"

She knew it was important, at this stage of the night, not to make any sudden moves. She turned to him, verrrry slooowly. She pointed lazily at Hank.

"His rule. No phones." She jabbed her finger at Luke. "Jus' like you."

Hank put up both hands; took a step back. "Leave me out of this."

Luke put his hand under her chin; tipped her face up to his. "You're drunk?" he asked, disbelieving. He turned to Hank, bristling with anger. "She's drunk? You let her get drunk?"

"Watch it, pal!" Hank bristled right back. "I'm not the one who left her here alone on her birthday!"

Fury washed over Luke's face. "I'm not havin' this conversation with you!"

"No! You need to have it with her!" Hank replied, heatedly.

"That was my plan!" Luke shot back. "But now she's drunk!"

"Hey. Guys. Calm down." Lorelai slid off of her stool. Her heels teetered crazily and both guys reached for her. Luke, being on the right side of the bar, won. He got his arm around her back, supporting her.

"Whoopsie," she giggled, teetering back and forth, now on purpose, just for the fun of it.

"Is she paid up?" Luke asked, sighing.

"She's fine," Hank said, giving a slight wave of his arm.

"_She's_ right here," Lorelai pointed out, not sure why she felt offended.

"We're goin' home," Luke said, and started guiding her to the door.

"See ya later, Hank!" Lorelai cried out, waving backwards.

"No, she won't!" Luke said with authority, pushing them through the café doors.

She watched, fascinated, as he tried to work her arms into her coat sleeves. "You do that really well," she told him, amazed. "Here I always figured you'd be better at the getttin' the clothes off part."

"Lorelai." He sighed again; rubbed his face. "Let's just get you home, OK?"

She floated down the steps and bounced along beside him to the truck. He opened the door and she gazed inside. She looked down at her legs, frowning. She put her hand on the seat. She knew there was a way to do this.

Suddenly her shoulders were being tilted back and his other arm was sweeping underneath her thighs. She was flying, and even though it felt glorious, she clutched at his shoulders in surprise. She landed in the seat.

"That was fun!" she told him, thrilled. "Can we do that again?"

"No," he said, and reached past her for the seat belt.

The back of his head was just below her face. Suddenly she was in complete agreement with Lane. She remembered when Lane couldn't stop her hand from running through the hair of the boy in the band she had a crush on. Well, she was in love with Luke. That was tons more than having a crush on someone. That meant she had to touch his hair, right?

"Solidarity, Sister!" she mumbled.

She put her hand on the back of his head. He'd gotten a haircut a few weeks ago, probably to impress Nicole, she realized. The edges at his neck were getting shaggier, now. Soon they'd be turning back into the curls she'd always secretly wanted to feel under her fingers.

His head shot up, stunned at her touch, probably. He looked at her, his face unreadable.

She kept her fingers running through his hair.

"Hi," she said, breathily. Her eyes locked onto his.

And just like that, he was kissing her. Kissing her hard and hungry. Her head was being pushed back into the headrest from the force of it. She pressed her fingers into his skull, wanting to keep him right there, kissing her just the way he was.

A passing car threw light over them and Luke pulled away. He pressed his forehead against hers. "Home," he said, a little shakily. He sounded like he was reminding himself.

He shut her door and walked around to his side.

She curled up in her seat, as much as she could with the seat belt hampering her, and watched him drive. She loved watching his face, his profile visible in the dim glow from the dash.

"You doin' OK?" he asked, glancing over at her.

"Fine," she assured him. "So how did I rate that time?"

"What?" Traffic had pulled his focus away from her. "What are you talking about?" he asked, once he could concentrate on her again.

"With the kiss," she explained, speaking slowly, not wanting to slur her words. "Compared to … her. The other woman. You prob'ly jus' kissed her, right? So how was it with me?"

"Really, Lorelai?" She could tell she'd made him angry, and she didn't know why. "You really think that's what I'd do? You think I'd kiss Nicole and then come right here and kiss you? Nice to know your opinion of me," he muttered.

"I'm not … I'm not. …" Things swam around in her brain and she tried to make some of them stick around long enough to make sense of them. "I'm not tryin' to make you mad," she pointed out, tolerantly. "I jus' wanna know how I rate. If I have a chance."

"I already told you I'm not discussing that with you, ever! Do you understand? Whatever happened between me and Nicole is not a topic of conversation with us!"

He sounded like he'd lost all patience with her and that was enough to tip her over into melancholy. She was pretty sure she'd also lost whatever chance she might have had with him. Tears spilled out of her eyes.

"Oh, hey, don't do that." He sounded miserable. And desperate. "Lorelai? Come on, now. Don't cry. Please."

She huddled herself the other way in her seat. "I'm not," she sniffed, crying harder.

His hand landed on her back, trying to be comforting, but it was killing her. "Just try to go to sleep, OK? I'll get you home, and tomorrow you'll come to the diner for a hangover breakfast and we'll talk this all out. We'll get everything all straightened out. I promise. Just don't cry anymore, please? I don't want you to cry on your birthday."

She stayed as quiet and still as she could and let him believe she had fallen asleep. Even so, he left his hand on her back for a very long time, sheltering her as best he could as he drove. She let her coat sleeve soak up her tears.

* * *

><p>The truck stopped and she realized they were parked in front of her house. Maybe she really had fallen asleep. She sat up and fumbled with the seat belt.<p>

"Here." He undid it for her.

She was still trying to figure out how to open the door when he opened it for her. He stood there, ready to help her out.

"I can do it myself," she told him, haughtily.

"I don't think so," he laughed.

She glared at him and slid out. He caught her before she lost her footing. She yanked herself away. "I said I can do it!" she insisted, angry now.

"Let me help you to the door," he urged.

She took two steps away, seething. She realized her stupid shoes were the main problems. She kicked them off defiantly, then nearly tumbled over as she bent to pick them up.

"Don't!" she warned him, as he moved to help her. "I'm fine," she said, enunciating clearly. She started to stagger towards the porch.

"You'll come see me in the morning, right?" he reminded her. "Hangover pancakes," he added as an enticement. She could tell it was killing him not to help her up the steps, and that perversely gave her pleasure. Let him suffer some, too!

She gave a vague wave of her hand at him and tried to open her front door without success. Luckily Rory heard her and came to the rescue.

"Oh, Mom!" Rory said, in dismay. "What happened?" She helped Lorelai in and shut the door. "Did you guys have a fight?" she asked, seeing her mother's face streaked with the cried-off mascara.

"Yes," Lorelai said, thinking that was the simplest explanation she could give to her daughter. She dropped her shoes and carefully started on the trek upstairs. When she got sick, as she surely would, she wanted it to be in the safety of her own bathroom.


	7. The Lying Stops

Lorelai parked the Jeep a block away from the diner and then sat there for a few minutes, nervously chewing on a fingernail as she watched various townspeople going about their daily routines. None of them knew how much anxiety was attached to the simple act of walking into Luke's today.

She didn't think she'd made too big of a fool of herself. She hoped not, anyway. There didn't seem to be any gaps in her memory of the evening. Some of it was cringe-inducing. Like the crying, for example. Some of it was even kind of funny, like when he picked her up and flew her into the truck.

And some of it, she thought, rubbing a hand over her forehead, was downright sobering, like when she admitted to Hank that she knew she was in love with Luke.

She drew in a shaky breath as she remembered the kiss. That poetry-inspiring, soul-warming, total knockout of a kiss. How was it possible that they could share something like that and yet they were still dancing around each other the way they were? Did it not feel that way to him? Was he that hung up on Nicole?

Her mouth puckered as though she was biting down on a Sour Patch Kid. Thinking about his feelings for Nicole was more than she could handle this morning.

She'd awakened today to a more manageable hangover than what she probably deserved. Extra Strength Tylenol and a prolonged stay in the shower had made her feel nearly human. Luckily Sookie had insisted she not come in until later this morning, assuming she'd be out celebrating her birthday until the wee hours. She had appreciated the extra time to get herself together. By the time she came downstairs, Rory was gone but had left her a note, saying that she hoped she felt better and that Luke had called, asking her to please come to the diner for breakfast, no matter when that turned out to be.

She sighed and closed her eyes, drawing in some courage. She grabbed the keys from the ignition and her purse and pushed herself out into the street, barely wincing as the bright sunlight danced off the side view mirror and into her eyes.

Once on the sidewalk she started the slow crawl to Luke's, taking her time by looking into all of the shop windows along the way. She knew she was dawdling, but it was the best she could hope for today.

Miss Patty came up beside her, a Doose's Market bag on her arm. "Hello, Lorelai. How are you, dear?"

"I'm fine, Patty." Lorelai could feel that the smile on her face was a rather grim one.

Patty began to look a little agonized. "Lorelai, I think we should talk," she said, humbly.

"What about?" Lorelai wondered. Patty continued to stare so long at her khaki pants and denim jacket without answering that Lorelai finally looked herself over, afraid that she'd spilled something down her outfit and just didn't know it.

Patty looked up, seeming more determined as she met her eyes. "Come with me," she commanded, and walked a little bit farther down the street to her studio.

"Let's go back here," Patty suggested, once they'd stepped inside the quiet building. She led Lorelai into the small closet-sized room in the back that served as her office.

"Have a seat, dear," she said, and Lorelai pulled in a folding chair that had been leaning up against the wall. She settled into it and watched Patty curiously.

Patty eased down into her chair and fluttered her hands about the bright purple scarf she wore. She sighed and looked unhappily down at her desk. "I really don't know how to go about telling you this," she admitted.

Lorelai was getting a distinctly déjà-vu feeling about this. "If this is about Nicole, don't worry. I already know."

Patty's head jumped up. "Who's Nicole?" she asked, puzzled.

"Uh, no one," Lorelai said, waving her hand to chase away the name. "Never mind. What is it, then?"

Patty bit her lip and then seemed to make a decision. "It's about you and Luke, and the April Fool's joke you thought you'd play on all of us."

It took a few moments for Lorelai to comprehend what Patty had just said. She gasped, her eyes bugging out and her mouth dropping open. "You knew?" she squealed, when her voice returned.

"Yes, sweetheart. We knew."

She was slowly shaking her head. "How?"

Patty sighed, turning her palms up. "Kirk."

"Kirk?" Lorelai frowned. "How in the hell did Kirk know?"

"Apparently he was down at the lake when you two were planning it out."

Lorelai shook her head vigorously. "There was no one there! We made sure!"

Patty looked at her levelly. "He was in the trash bin."

"Why would Kirk …" Her voice trailed off as Patty gave her a look. "You're right, I don't want to know," she said in defeat. She tipped herself back in the chair, looking up at the ceiling.

"You knew the whole time?" she asked, quietly.

Patty nodded her head. "Kirk told Taylor, because you know he tells Taylor everything, and Gypsy overheard, and from there it just spread like wildfire. We didn't mean any harm, Lorelai. You have to believe that. We just thought it'd serve you right if we gave you a little taste of your own medicine."

She felt like she was still catching up. "So who all knew?"

"Everyone," Patty said.

"Everyone?"

"Everyone," Patty confirmed again.

She was getting a really bad feeling about this. "Sookie?"

"Yes," Patty nodded. "Sookie knew."

She swallowed hard. "Rory?" she almost whispered.

"Yes, dear, Rory knew. We had to have Rory with us or it would have never worked."

"Rory knew," she repeated to herself.

"Lorelai," Patty said, looking ashamed, "you have to believe me when I say we truly meant no harm with this. None of us ever thought that you and Luke would keep up this pretense for even two minutes, let alone for two weeks. We thought it would just be a good joke to pull on you."

"Right," Lorelai said, still feeling dazed. "Just a joke. Funny," she mumbled, trying to laugh.

Patty shook her head. "I've been watching you look _so_ unhappy for the last few days, and I just knew I had to bring this to an end. I'm so sorry, Lorelai. Can you forgive me and everybody else?"

Different images flashed through her head. She saw Luke helping Rory cook in their kitchen. She remembered sitting next to him in her parents' dining room, his hand barely grazing hers. She felt the sugar crystals on her lips from the elephant ear they'd shared She swore she could still taste the cinnamon on her tongue.

"There's nothing to forgive," Lorelai said, trying to pull herself away from those memories. "I tried to trick you, and you tricked me instead. All's fair in love and April Fool's Day, right?" She didn't groan until after she heard what she'd said.

"Thank you for understanding, Lorelai." Patty pulled herself up and came around the desk. Lorelai stood up and Patty gave her a big hug. "You know, you're still a lucky, lucky girl. Getting Luke Danes to kiss you and take you out for two weeks? We should all pull April Fool's jokes like that!"

"Yeah. Lucky," she parroted, the words trying to stick in her throat.

"You'll tell Luke?" Patty asked.

"I'll tell him," she stoically agreed.

This time when she got back out on the sidewalk her feet dragged even more. She didn't want to hear Luke's reaction when he found out the last two unbelievably complicated weeks had been for nothing. She didn't want to see his joy when he found out he didn't have to be her boyfriend anymore.

No matter how slowly she walked, Stars Hollow was only so big, and eventually she reached the diner. It took every bit of fortitude she had to pull open the door. The bells chimed out, hurting her head.

"There you are!" Luke put the coffeepot down on an empty table and came over to her. He put his hand under her chin and looked into her face, examining her closely. "Are you OK? I have to admit, you're kind of a funny drunk, but I still worried about you all night. You want some coffee?"

"Sure," she said. "I mean, when would I ever turn down coffee?" He patted her shoulder and went back to pick up the pot. She walked dazedly over to the counter and eased herself up onto a stool.

He quickly poured her a mug and sat it in front of her. She cradled it in her hands while he leaned his elbows on the counter, watching her.

"Are you hungry? I was planning on making you this stuffed French toast recipe for your birthday, but then you didn't come in. Do you want it today?" He suddenly looked concerned. "Or are you too queasy? Do you just want pancakes? Or maybe some plain toast? Just say the word."

There was nothing wrong with eating breakfast before she told him, she decided. She was going to tell him. It'd just be better with a little food in her stomach first. That's all.

"French toast sounds great."

"Yeah?" He smiled, those sincere blue eyes of his just lighting up at her. "I'll go get it started, then." He put his hands on top of hers holding the mug, his thumbs briefly smoothing over the insides of her wrists. "Be right back."

She watched him walk away towards the kitchen and she felt miserable. She knew she wouldn't be able to take a bite of the food with the pressure of what she needed to tell him filling her up.

"Luke, wait." The words were out now. She had to continue. "There's something I need to tell you first."

He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. "What?"

She hooked her feet over the top rung of the stool and hunched her shoulders over, staring down at the dark brew in front of her. "I just found out something."

He came back and stood in front of her again, his arms now crossed over his chest. He was silent, waiting for her to continue.

"It's … It's about the joke we've been playing," she ventured.

He looked at her closely. "Go on."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "It turns out we haven't been the ones playing the joke." Her eyes flew back open and she saw he was now scowling at her.

"What's that mean?" he asked, curtly.

"It means the joke's been on us." He was staring at her very hard. "Patty just told me that everybody knew about it."

He was starting to look angry. He gave a snort and flung his head back. "No they didn't. That's not possible."

"Yeah, they did. Kirk overheard us."

He laughed in disbelief. "He did not!"

Lorelai nodded quickly. "He was at the lake when we were planning it out. He heard us. He was in the dumpster."

"Why would Kirk …" he started, but quickly stopped. The muscle in his jaw jumped and he looked down at the floor, fighting for control. "He heard us?"

She nodded again.

He was starting to pace back and forth behind the counter. "And he told everybody?"

She continued to nod.

"I'll kill him!" He smacked his hands down on the counter. "I swear, this time, I'm really gonna kill him!"

"Oh, now, Luke," she said, trying to pacify him. "I doubt that he meant for it to get spread around the way it did."

He suddenly froze as an idea hit him. He pointed at Lorelai in triumph. "That's why he was acting so weird, wasn't it? And I know, it's seems redundant to say that Kirk was acting weird! But that's why he was scared to be around me, wasn't it? He knew I'd kill him when I found out!" He shook his head, thinking about it. "But it did get me two Kirk-free weeks. I guess there's a silver lining to this whole crazy scheme of yours after all."

"That's right!" Lorelai started to bob her head in agreement. "See? There was some good to it, wasn't there?"

She watched his face. She could tell when all of the pieces fell into place for him.

"Everybody knew?" he asked her grimly.

"Afraid so."

"Rory?" He looked at her sharply. "Rory knew?"

Lorelai looked down at her coffee again. She nodded. "Patty says she did."

He shook his head and then clasped his hands together over his hat. "So all of this; all of this crap we've been through these past weeks ― Do you mean to tell me that none of it was necessary? She _knew_?"

There was really nothing she could say to blunt it. "Yeah," she said quietly.

He just stood for a moment, his eyes focused on nothing. "Everything," he finally muttered. "That night, at your house. The thing about me moving in. She just did that to see us squirm?"

Lorelai hadn't even thought about that. "I guess so," she said gloomily.

He started stomping around again in agitation. "She really is your daughter, isn't she?"

"Hey!" Lorelai protested.

"Only, she's even more dangerous, because she's all sweet! You'd never suspect her of being so devious! And here you thought _Jess_ was a bad influence on _her_!"

"Luke!" she said, irritated.

"Ah, geez," he muttered. He stood still, rubbing at his face. Finally he straightened, throwing back his shoulders. "But it's all over now, right? All of the crazy pretend stuff with us, that's all done, right? We're back to it just being you and me for real now, right?"

"Right," she said, thickly.

"Thank God," he said, making it genuinely sound like a prayer.

She tried her best to smile, even though she was watching her worst fears come true before her. "Yep, it's all over. You're free of me."

He took one more deep breath, but when he looked at her next he seemed relaxed and free of any anger. "Not quite," he pointed out. "Don't forget I'm taking you out tomorrow night. I still owe you a birthday dinner."

For a split second her heart seized with hope. His eyes were bright and shining at her and for a moment she thought it all could be real. But then she remembered the fervent 'thank God' he'd uttered just a few seconds before.

"Oh, that's OK. You don't have to," she said by rote.

"But I want to," he insisted. "I promised to make it up to you, and I always keep my promises." He gave her a smile so charming that it knocked the breath out of her. In fact, it knocked her off the stool. She found herself standing, inching away from his relieved happiness at being free of her.

"Don't you want breakfast?" he frowned. "You didn't even drink your coffee!"

"I need to go," she said, truthfully.

He quickly moved around the counter to her. "Are you sure you're OK?" His eyes darkened with concern for her.

"I should just get to work," she said, trying to sound normal.

Normal, however, hadn't caught up to them yet. Automatically they both moved to give each other a parting kiss. At the same time, they both realized that was no longer something appropriate for them to do. They both shied back, embarrassed.

"Sorry," she said, feeling the hot blush rushing up her neck and spreading over her cheeks.

He put his hands on his hips and chuckled as he thought about it. "No, you know what? This is a good day!" He reached out and put his hand on the back of her head, drawing her to him and pressing a friendly kiss to her forehead. "I'll see you later, OK?"

"Sure. See you later." She walked blindly towards the door, but paused just before she opened it. "Hey, Luke?"

"What?" He stopped from clearing her spot at the counter and looked over at her.

She had to swallow hard before the words would come out. "I had a really good time pretending to be your girlfriend. It ― it was fun. If you ever need a recommendation, just let me know."

He looked at her appraisingly for a moment, his head held like he was expecting her to say something more. "I'll keep that in mind," he finally said, a thoughtful look on his face.

She nodded, and then flinched as the bells over the door made her head hurt again as she walked out.

* * *

><p>Lorelai pulled the Jeep around to the back of the Independence Inn, scanning over the cars already parked there and noting which staff members were working. She walked into the kitchen, not looking forward to talking to Sookie. Maybe she should have tried to delay it for awhile.<p>

"Hey there, Miss Sleepyhead!" Sookie called out to her instantly. "Did you have fun with your guy last night?"

"Sookie, we both know he's not my guy," she replied, going straight for the truth.

"Why? What's going on?" Sookie put down the bright yellow bowl of batter she was stirring.

"I know," Lorelai said.

"Know what?" Sookie's head tilted in confusion.

"I know that you know that the whole thing was a joke."

"Oh, Lorelai. Oh, Sweetie." Sookie hurried over to her and laid a hand on hers. "How'd you find out?"

"Miss Patty spilled the beans."

"Oh, Lorelai," Sookie said again, looking stricken. "Before you get all mad at me, let me explain. I thought it sounded like a really funny joke, turning the tables on you. I never dreamed that you and Luke wouldn't see through what we were doing. None of us thought that it would go on this long. But man, when you guys commit to a gag, you don't let go!" She looked hopefully at Lorelai. "Besides, it wasn't that bad, was it?"

"No, it wasn't that bad," Lorelai said dully. "And I'm not really that mad at you."

"Well, I have to tell you," Sookie said, looking roguish now, "I had an ulterior motive. I was really hoping that you being around Luke this much might have some unintended consequences. I thought maybe you might finally admit to some not-so-friendly feelings about him after this much time together."

She drew in a breath and let it sigh out of her. "He's dating someone else, Sook."

Sookie looked baffled. "Who is?"

"Luke. He's dating someone else."

"No!" Sookie said, sounding like she thought it was a joke. "Who?" she demanded.

"Remember that skinny little lawyer that comes to see Taylor from time to time? Her. Nicole," she added, the bitterness she felt coating the woman's name.

"But how did he …" Sookie shook her head, trying to figure it out. "I mean, you guys were going out all the time."

"We worked it out," Lorelai said, not wanting her to know how pathetic it really had been.

Sookie looked at her closely. "You got caught up in this, didn't you?" Sometimes Sookie was able to read her better than anyone. "Oh, Sweet Potato, I'm so sorry."

"Nah, I'm fine," Lorelai fibbed, trying to deflect her sympathy. "I just drank way too much last night. I need some hangover foods, that's all. I'm having a hard time dealing with the after-effects of birthday shots and finding out that the last two weeks of my life didn't really exist."

Sookie nodded, pacified, glad to be able to offer something she excelled in. "I'll fix up some stuff and send it to your office."

"Great. Thanks," Lorelai said, and took a few steps out of the kitchen. Something was nagging her, though, and she needed to know. "By the way, did Michel know? Was he in on it, too?"

Sookie looked up from where she was already starting to slice some homemade bread for toast. "Michel?" she scoffed. "You know Michel. I tried to explain it to him, but he went all haughty Frenchman on me and refused to listen. So no, I doubt that he ever understood what was really going on."

"Yeah. That sounds like Michel," she said, hiding her relief, and went on to her office feeling just a little bit less bruised than she had.

* * *

><p>By four o'clock she was ready to pack it in. Her headache was back and she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was looking at her and talking about her. She figured that Rory was home by now and she really wanted to talk to her before she and Jess left to drive to a concert in Bridgeport.<p>

Home felt like sanctuary when she walked in. She settled onto the couch gratefully, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

She sensed Rory creeping in and standing next to the couch. With a sense of inevitability she opened her eyes.

"Am I grounded until I'm 30?" Rory asked meekly.

She grabbed one of the couch pillows and squished it against her middle. "Hard to go to college when you're grounded."

"There are classes online," Rory offered.

"You're not grounded," Lorelai said.

Rory found a little space to sit down on the couch, at the end of her mother's out-stretched legs. "I never thought that this little joke would turn into such a huge thing, Mom. Please believe me. I was kind of mad at you, knowing that you were going to try and fool me, too, so I went along with it. But I never dreamed that you and Luke wouldn't back off right away. And then, it kind of seemed like you were having a good time with him, so I didn't think it was really so awful. But I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

"I bequeath the title of All-Powerful Prankster to you. I am no longer worthy."

Rory looked worried. "You were in seriously bad shape last night. Did you guys really have a fight?"

"It all just came crashing down on us, I think. But it's all over now," she shrugged. "We'll deal."

"Are you going to be OK, going to Hartford tonight without me?"

"Took the coward's way out of that." Lorelai smiled, pleased, and let her eyes close for a moment of gloating. "Called Grandpa's secretary this afternoon and asked her to please relay the message to both Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore that I was ill and would not be attending dinner tonight." She pointed a stern finger at Rory. "And next week, _you_ get to tell them about your little prank. You can be the one to tell them they're not getting a son-in-law after all."

Rory fidgeted uncomfortably. "Um, yeah. Hey, Mom, about that …"

"No." Lorelai's feet dropped to the floor as she sat bolt upright. "No way." Sucker-punched again. "Not the grandparents, too?"

"Yeah," Rory admitted.

"Oh, my God," Lorelai mumbled. "You are kidding me. They knew? The prenup; the champagne toasts; that was all a set-up?"

"Yeah," Rory said again. "But what about Grandma, huh?" she asked, trying to be upbeat. "Who knew she was such a good actress, huh?"

Lorelai groaned in despair and leaned back against the couch again, her hands pressed over her eyes.

"Am I grounded now?" Rory asked after a few moments of silence.

"No," Lorelai grumbled. "I'm totally mortified, but even I can see the humor in it."

"It was kind of nice, having Luke around, wasn't it?" Rory asked timidly after a bit.

"Yeah." She squeezed her eyes shut tight, and she could feel her lips getting ready to do that ridiculous trembling thing that would give her away. "Yeah, it was nice."

"Mom?" She felt Rory's hand on her knee. "You're OK, aren't you?"

"Of course I am." Lorelai did her best to scoff. She swallowed kind of hard, not looking at Rory. "I just need some wallowing time, I think."

"Wallowing?" She could hear the concern ramp up about three levels in Rory's voice. "The need to wallow would indicate that you feel something more than just distress at a joke gone bad. It would indicate that you've got some heartstrings attached here."

She clutched the pillow harder than ever. "I know what really went on," she tried to explain. "But the play-acting started to feel pretty real, and I guess I just need a little time to say goodbye to that." She saw the worry in Rory's face and guessed that her next move would be insisting to stay home and wallow with her. "I think I need a night alone to stuff my face with lots of junk and put this all in perspective. You understand, right?" Rory didn't need to know that the play-acting had stopped on her end. It was painful enough the way it was.

"I guess," Rory agreed unhappily.

A knock at the door made Rory give one last-ditch attempt. "Just say the word and I'll tell Jess I'm staying here tonight. I'll run to Doose's and get us ice cream."

Lorelai just shook her head. "I'll feel better knowing you're having a good time." There was another rap at the door. "Go let him in," Lorelai encouraged her.

She could hear their soft mumblings in the entry, and then the even softer rustlings as they kissed, mindful of her in the next room. She realized the pillow was going to be ruined if she didn't stop squeezing it so hard. It was already showing signs of living the rest of its life in a perpetual hourglass shape.

"I'll just be a minute," Rory said, rushing to her room.

"Hi," Jess said, coming to a stop a few feet away from the couch.

"Hi," she said back, making an effort to sit upright and look at him. "I'm afraid you're not going to have a nice drive to Bridgeport, after all. It looks like rain again."

"It's gettin' colder, too," Jess said. "Windy."

"That's April for you," Lorelai commented. "Fickle."

"Yeah." He fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket and then stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Listen," he shrugged, "that whole joke thing? I didn't want to be a part of it, you know?"

"Sure. I know," she assured him.

"But I have to admit, you and Luke being together wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be." He scowled even harder, but since she knew him a little bit better now, she understood that the way he was biting his lip just meant he was apprehensive about what he was going to say. "I think you're actually, well, kinda good for him."

Her desire to do a happy dance tripped over her knowledge that any benefits Jess had seen were probably due to Luke's feelings about Nicole, not her. "Thanks," she said, her voice lacking any enthusiasm.

Rory plopped down on the couch beside her again. "You're sure you don't want me to stay?"

Lorelai saw Jess' head jerk up as he sensed their plans being hijacked.

"Go," she said, giving them the best smile she was currently capable of bestowing. "Get out of here already. I vant to be alone!" she exclaimed dramatically.

"Call me if you need me," Rory requested. "And splurge for the good stuff," she said softer, as she leaned over to hug her mother.

Lorelai listened as the sounds of Jess' car faded away down the street. She listened to the sounds of her own breathing and the creaks of her old house as the spring winds whipped by. Eventually her ears picked out a clock ticking somewhere in the empty house, even though she wasn't even aware that they still had a clock that ticked. She sat there for a long time, trying to let her mind go blank.

Eventually she pulled herself up and shuffled to the kitchen, looking through the cupboards for suitable wallowing food. For some reason they seemed to have an abundance of things that would be deemed healthy and a decided lack of anything crammed full of transfats and artificial dyes and flavorings. She instantly made a new rule for their household: One shelf would be set aside for all things needed for wallowing in an emergency. Who wanted to go to the market when you needed to wallow in heartbreak?

She put herself on automatic pilot and soon found herself in Doose's, the basket over her arm filled with a nice selection of spray cheese, Hershey's kisses and Twinkies, plus more choices from all of the major junk food groups. She paid and took her bag to the Jeep.

For a moment she looked longingly at the diner. Normally a trip inside would help to ease her unhappiness. Now the cause of her unhappiness was actually inside, and she felt banished from making a pilgrimage through the door in the hopes of being healed.

She felt isolated and cold. It had started to drizzle and her cute denim jacket was no match for the stiff April gusts. She drove home quickly, not looking back at the coffee cup logo.

She changed into sweats and then sat out her purchases on the counter, where she discovered that she wasn't really in the mood for anything she bought. She didn't know what she wanted, but it wasn't this. She was cold and shivering. She wanted something hot. Something like …

Coffee! Of course! She filled the coffeemaker quickly. While she impatiently waited on it to brew she tore open the crackers and coated several of them in the spray cheese, crunching them as the coffee aroma started to soothe her spirits.

She wanted the coffee but she needed something to make it more wallow-worthy. The solution came to her instantly and she squatted down to a lower cabinet, rooting around until she unearthed a bottle of whiskey.

Perfect. She grabbed a mug and poured in some coffee, then added a healthy dose of the whiskey. She paused, then poured in an added splash for good measure. She had no Cool Whip or spray whipped cream or chocolate syrup, and she made another mental note to always have those supplies on hand. She tucked the crackers and cheese and kisses under her arms and headed for the living room.

In a moment she'd found the old VHS tape and had pushed it into the player. She got comfy on the couch, tucking the fleecy throw around her as she worked the remote. She sipped at her coffee as she hoped that the misty water-colored memories would indeed help her to forget why she felt so sad.

* * *

><p>The list was getting too long for her to remember. She really needed to start writing this all down. Then she could send Rory out to get everything when she got home.<p>

She had failed as a mother. How could she be a good role model for Rory when they didn't even have the ingredients needed for s'mores in the house?

Katie and Hubbell had been on pause for a long time while she had gone on a floating quest for s'mores. Sookie had given them a s'mores maker kit last Christmas and they had used it only once. Now she was dying for s'mores. Unfortunately she had none of the ingredients needed, but she was resourceful, even after several mugs of the wallowing coffee. Pop Tarts could substitute for the graham crackers, chocolate kisses for the candy bars. And miracle of miracles, she'd unearthed an opened bag of stuck-together marshmallows.

Now if she could just get the candle-lighting torch to ignite so she could start the can of Sterno, she'd be all set. She clicked the trigger on the lighter over and over, getting more frustrated each time it failed to fire.

A knock at the door made her frown. She'd thought about ordering some food, but she hadn't, had she? Ooh, maybe her powers of mind control were expanding, and Pete had felt her need for a pizza. Maybe he'd sent one over. Maybe she no longer needed to use the phone at all!

She wrapped the throw around her and shuffled to the door, letting it trail out behind her like a royal robe. In her hand she still clutched the lighter like a scepter, continuing to click the trigger as she answered the door.

A very, very handsome man stood before her. She had to blink and refocus several times before she realized it was Luke. He had on the black sweater she thought she remembered buying for him a long time ago. He had on nice, dark jeans and a brown leather jacket that she thought was new. Date clothes, she realized, the hurt spreading throughout her chest. Looked like he wasn't wasting any time starting his open life with Nicole.

She had to blink again at the bouquet of daisies in his hand. They were vibrant and colorful and looked like Easter eggs had exploded over them. For some reason they looked really familiar, but she couldn't place why.

She staggered backwards and his hand that wasn't holding the flowers reached out and grabbed her.

"Are you sick?" he asked, those worry lines back on his forehead.

"I'm fine," she slurred, turning and throwing her trailing material behind her again as she went back to the living room.

He shut the door and followed her. "I saw you in the street," he explained. "You didn't come into the diner, and it looked like you'd been to Doose's. I thought maybe that meant you weren't going to Hartford after all. I thought maybe I'd better check on you."

She landed ungracefully on the couch and instantly started trying to light the torch again.

"What is all this?" Luke asked, looking around at the s'mores maker and all of the foodstuffs scattered around.

"I'm wallowing," Lorelai explained, as patiently as possible. Click, click, click-click, went the trigger on the lighter.

"Wallowing?" Luke's face was streaked with misgiving. "What is that, some sort of female thing?"

That made her giggle. "Yes, it's definitely a female thing." She laughed harder and a few tears slid out, following the trail of those she'd shed earlier in the evening. It was weird how tears were a by-product of both laughing and crying. Her fingers convulsively kept clicking on the trigger as she tried to swallow down the tears.

Luke sat down on the couch beside her. He laid the flowers down on the coffee table and then turned towards her, reaching out to touch her arm. "What's going on here?"

She leaned towards him, feeling bad about his cluelessness. "I want s'mores," she explained, her breath puffing out over him.

His eyes opened wide in surprise. He reached over and grabbed her coffee mug, bringing it up to his nose. He sat it down quickly and then cradled his head in his hands.

"I don't believe this," he muttered. "You're drunk again?"

She tilted her head and ran her tongue experimentally over her teeth. "Maybe just a teensy bit." She waved a hand back and forth. "More like, just kinda fuzzy." Click, click. Click, click, click-click went the lighter.

Luke grabbed the lighter out of her hand. "I don't think that you and an open flame are a good idea right now."

"Whatever," she ground out, feeling unfairly chastised. She found the remote and started the movie again, forcing herself to stare at the people on the screen.

"Lorelai," he said, quietly. "Talk to me, here. What is this? What's going on with you?"

She sighed. "I'm _wallowing_," she explained, still patient.

"I don't know what that means," he said. "You need to tell me what that means."

"Wallowing is what you do when you get dumped," she said, her eyes filling up again.

He sat back against the couch, his face hardening. "You got dumped?" he asked, his voice harsh.

"Yes," she said, her voice wispy. The tears were trickling down her cheeks, now.

"I ― I didn't know that you ―" he cut himself off. His hands grasped his knees. "Who? Who dumped you?"

Geez, he was dense! She leaned over, sniffling, and poked him in the chest. She sat back, feeling fulfilled.

His face was a mass of confusion when he turned to her. "I don't understand. Do you mean me?"

She scoffed and rolled her eyes heavenward. "Of course you!" She blotted her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Have I been dating anyone else?"

"I haven't been dating you," he argued. "And I certainly didn't dump you."

"Yes, you did," she nodded petulantly. The tears were coming faster now. "You dumped me for someone else!"

"Lorelai, I most certainly did not …" His building defense suddenly petered out. He looked around with new understanding. He cleared his throat, apparently while debating what to say next.

"So this," his hands indicated the debris on the coffee table, "is about me?" As she nodded, his hand came over and wiped under her eye. "These tears?" he asked, his voice husky. "They're about me?"

"Yes," she said, her voice resonating with sadness.

He took a long moment, his thumb continuing to swipe over her cheek tenderly. "Please don't cry anymore," he requested, and pulled her over so that her face was resting against his chest. "I don't want you to cry anymore. Especially not about me."

"Okey-dokey," she agreed, soaking down into the soft sweater covering his chest. She liked this, very much. She liked the softness, and the warmth, and the strength. She wouldn't mind staying like this for a very long time.

Finally he pulled back, his hand caressing her face and coming to rest under her chin. He encouraged her to look up at him. "I'm going to take care of some things, OK? You just watch your movie for a little bit." He kissed her forehead and then picked up the lighter, the coffee mug and the flowers and disappeared towards the kitchen.

"I don't know why you complain every Thanksgiving that I don't have any vases," she heard him yell after a few minutes. "You don't have any, either!"

"Yes I do!" she yelled back.

"Where are they, then?"

She waved her arm vaguely, even though she knew he couldn't see her. "Up in the thing. You know. Up there. Somewhere."

"That's very helpful." He came back in with the flowers in the striped pitcher she normally used for margaritas. They looked very festive. He sat the flowers in the center of the table and she stared at them, smiling docilely.

He made a couple of trips, carrying everything back to the kitchen. She could hear him moving about, cleaning up and putting things away. At one point she thought she even heard him in Rory's room.

He finally came over to her, carrying a glass of water and her bottle of Tylenol. "Let's do some preventative maintenance here," he suggested, shaking two pills into her hand. She took them and he watched in approval as she drank some of the water.

"OK, now. Up you go." He pulled her up and unwrapped the throw from her. She shivered, suddenly cold after being tucked up in her cocoon. He placed the pillows on one end for her head and arranged the throw as a blanket. He turned off the lights on either end of the couch.

"Once I'm gone, I want you to come here to the couch and go to sleep. Can you do that?"

She nodded seriously.

"And then tomorrow morning, I want you to come to the diner. No drinking," he warned her. "No mimosas, no screwdrivers, no bloody marys. You come to the diner and see me. Can you remember that?"

He seemed to be very close to her. He was looking at her, so earnestly, so warmly, and wow, did he smell good, and her body's reaction to all of that goodness made his words just sort of fizzle somewhere up above her head.

"Lorelai? What did I just say?"

"Um …" she frowned up at him, swaying a little bit, trying to recapture whatever he'd just told her.

He sighed. "OK. Let's try this." He pulled her along with him until they were at the desk. He shoved through the piles of bills and coupons there until he found a pen. He took her right hand in his and wrote something on it.

"Tickles!" she giggled, trying to pull away.

"Just a minute," he protested, holding her hand tightly. "There."

She held her hand up and saw that he'd written 'DINER BREAKFAST' on it in bright sparkly purple ink. Meanwhile he was writing on her left hand. 'NO DRINKING!' he inked on that one.

She splayed her hands and looked at them in admiration. "Marking your territory?" she asked, remembering from somewhere that she like to tease him.

"Yes I am," he agreed. "Now I need you to walk me to the door."

He kept his arm around her shoulders until they reached the door. He opened it and stepped out, turning back to her once he was officially out on the porch.

His hands went to her shoulders and then slowly slid up her neck to her face. One hand slid into her curls on the back of her head, his fingers rubbing against her scalp, making sparks ignite and travel down her spinal cord.

"I'm going to answer your question about what I think about your kisses, but to do it, I need you to stay on that side of the threshold, OK?"

She looked down at her striped socks, and at his feet in dark brown shoes, and at the divider between them. "OK," she said, not really comprehending.

The gentle hand on the back of her head suddenly pulled her towards him insistently and his mouth was on hers, kissing her with no reservations. He kissed her like there were no barriers between them at all. He kissed her like it was a foregone conclusion that she belonged to him. She got her arms around his neck and managed to pull herself further up on him, wanting him to know that she heartily agreed. Her feet slid over onto his side of the doorway.

"No," his voice rasped out. He pulled away and carefully pushed her hips back over the threshold. "See, that's the thing with kissing you. I can't do it unless I'm already out the door. Otherwise I'd never leave. Do you understand? There's no comparison between you and anybody. You win," he murmured, and leaned forward and captured her mouth again.

"Yay, me," she said, gasping for breath as they broke apart again. "But you can stay. You don't have to leave."

"Yeah, I do," he chuckled ruefully, holding her tight. "Here I've already broken my own rule. I was only going to kiss you once, and I've already done it twice." He swallowed a breath and leaned towards her, looking pained. He kissed her mouth again, quickly, then pulled back to look at her, his eyes half-lidded. Breathing harder, he stroked her face, and then kissed her again, lingering this time. The third time he came back, drinking her in, his hand finding its way down along her neck, sliding along her collarbone underneath her sweater, finally rubbing against the hollow of her throat as she practically swooned against him.

"See? I need to go," he said, shaking his head.

"No," she argued, reaching for him again.

"Yes," he said. "I need to go while I still have a little willpower left." He kissed her chin, both cheeks, her forehead again, sighing as he did so. He brought up her right hand, with the reminder to come to the diner. "I'll see you in the morning," he said, showing her the message. Then he opened her palm and kissed it.

"Don't go," she whimpered, her eyes closing.

"Go lay down on the couch," he urged her. "The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it'll be morning."

"Like Christmas?" she asked, perking up.

He laughed. "Yeah, just like Christmas. Go on, now."

He watched as she settled herself on the couch. He leaned in, pushing in the button on the center of the doorknob so that it would lock behind him.

"Sweet dreams," she heard him call out. Her eyes slid shut, while a smile broke out on her well-kissed mouth.

* * *

><p>The first thing she saw when her eyes opened was the bouquet of bright daisies in her margarita pitcher. Her fingers instantly went to her lips and she traced over them experimentally, making herself shiver. Maybe it hadn't been a dream.<p>

The next thing she became aware of was that someone was sitting in the chair, watching her. She swung her feet to the floor, her heart leaping in fear.

"Rory," she breathed out through her dry mouth. It took a few seconds before the ache in her head caught up to her. She rubbed her forehead and pushed back her hair.

Rory did not look happy. Her hands were clasped over her stomach and she looked disapprovingly at Lorelai.

"Would you like to explain to me why every bottle of booze in this house was in my closet?" Rory asked, her voice frosty. "Even the bottle of cooking sherry that Sookie brought over for the chicken that the one time and the NyQuil was in there. What in the world did you do last night?"

Lorelai stared at her daughter, not at all sure what the answer was to her question. Then she saw the purple ink on her hand. It knocked everything else completely out of her head.

"I've got to go to the diner," she said, sounding astonished. "I've got to go right now!" She turned her hand and showed Rory, hoping to underscore her point.

"Fine." Rory sighed and came over to give her mother a hand up off the couch. "But I think you should shower first."

"Shower first," Lorelai agreed, and let Rory help her navigate over to the stairs, hoping that the soap and water wouldn't completely wash off the words he'd marked on her.

* * *

><p>Lorelai had rushed through every aspect of getting ready to get here. She'd pulled her hair back into a careless ponytail and put on the first pair of jeans she'd touched. She'd barely put on any makeup at all, so anxious was she to get to the diner. But now that she was here, now that her feet in her faded pink sneakers were touching the steps, she found that she lacked the courage to actually step inside. It was Rory who nudged her through the door; Rory who led them over to a table.<p>

"Coffee, girls?" Caesar asked that before they even sat down at the table, as he passed by them on the way to the counter.

"Yes, please," Rory answered immediately.

"Oh, god, yes," Lorelai moaned over the nagging ache in her head.

"No coffee for her!"

Luke laid down the law from where he was busy back behind the counter.

She and Rory both turned disbelieving eyes to him. "Luke," she said, sounding pitiful, "I really need the coffee!"

"Rory can have coffee. Not you."

She would have glared at him, but it hurt. "Luke!"

"Here." He brought her out a mug. "Drink this instead."

She looked at it suspiciously. "Why?"

"It's just peppermint tea," he told her, exasperated already. He leaned a little closer; spoke more directly into her ear. "It'll help your head, help to settle your stomach." His expression turned somewhat grimmer. "I like the taste of peppermint a whole lot better than garlic or tequila or whiskey." His eyes went to her mouth and her heart fluttered. "Maybe it doesn't quite beat cinnamon and sugar, but it's close."

She collapsed onto a chair, the strength in her legs dissipated by his words. Rory sat down calmly, Luke went back behind the counter, and she sipped at her tea. Luke was right, she found. It soothed her throat and calmed her mind. She took measured breaths and tried to compose herself.

"Lorelai!"

She jumped in her seat, banging her leg against the table. Luke had called out her name from his spot back behind the counter. She turned around in her chair to see him. What had she done now to irritate him?

"Lorelai," he said again, seeing that he had her attention. Everyone's attention, for that matter. He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at his feet, shaking his head the tiniest bit. He looked up again in a moment, a half-smile on his face that seemed to say, _Oh, what the hell_. He reached up and took off his cap, laying it on the counter behind him, one hand smoothing down his hair. He backed up against the far workspace, took a running step and then vaulted himself up and over the counter where fortunately no one was eating at the moment, landing smoothly between two stools.

She was on her feet by then, and had staggered to the center of the room, staring at him in wonder.

"Lorelai," he said, walking towards her. "I can't live like this anymore."

She kept trying to swallow but couldn't. She wasn't sure if she was even breathing.

"Please, Lorelai." He was smiling now, just at her, acting as though they weren't surrounded by half the town. He slowly walked towards her, confidence in his step. "I can't stand us being apart."

"Luke." She was breathing now, she realized, but the air was catching in the back of throat and somewhere tight down inside her lungs, and she wasn't at all positive she could get actual words out. "Are you sure?"

He was close enough now that she could see his eyes, dark and blue and warm, looking only into hers. He was close enough that she started to sway into him, his pull on her completely melting her, and she leaned against him, her arms going up around his neck.

"Are you?" he asked against her ear.

"Yes," she breathed out, the words only for him. "I love you, Luke."

"I love you, too." She felt him smile, his face pressed up against her. "That's what I've been trying to tell you for two days. I've just been having a hard time finding you sober."

"But ―" she began, a horrible thought in her head.

"That's what Thursday night was about," he cut her off, knowing what she was going to say. "I needed to take care of that first."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she cried out, smacking his arm, thinking of all of the unnecessary pain she'd been through.

"I thought I did!" he said, annoyed.

"You're fighting already?" Jess asked, rolling his eyes as he walked over to where Rory was on her feet, a hand clamped over her mouth as she watched a repeat of the show from April 1st.

"Not fighting," Luke said, firmly, his arms anchoring her to him.

"Not fighting at all," Lorelai insisted, having trouble with the whole getting air into her lungs things again.

They looked at each other and they drew closer and closer, dying to kiss each other.

"You two do realize it's not April Fool's Day anymore, right?" Miss Patty called out.

"That's right! You do this and we're holdin' ya to it!" Babette yelled.

"This is no joke," Luke muttered, and finally captured Lorelai's lips under his.

People cheered and clapped and there were even a few whistles, making them break apart. Lorelai's face was glowing and even Luke looked happier than anyone could ever remember.

"Come on," he said, taking her hand. They dodged their way through the cheering diners.

"Where are we going?" Lorelai asked, as Luke pushed her through the curtain.

"Back here," he said, turning her around to face him. He kissed her hungrily, walking her backwards as they kissed.

"Where?" she asked, pulling her mouth away for just a moment.

"Storeroom," he muttered, keeping words to a minimum.

She felt him pull down the zipper on her jacket and push it off her arms. "See?" she laughed, pulling away again. "I knew you'd be good at that part, too."

He swung her in through the door and closed it by pushing her up against it. His face came down to hers, the need on it almost looking like pain.

"Why are we back here?" she asked, teasing him, because yes, she loved to tease him. She was going to love to do everything to him.

"Because I need to prove to you that I am neither shy nor passive," he retorted.

"Ah. That hurt, didn't it?" she asked, sounding smug.

He looked like he was going to say something but he kissed her instead, and by the time they broke apart she was seeing stars and no longer had any words at her disposal.

He drew a breath and came in for another kiss. "I may not even be a gentleman," he told her in warning, and she laughed, molding herself against him.

"That," she said, daring him, her eyes sparkling with happiness, "you might just have to prove."

* * *

><p><strong>Seven months later …<strong>

"You realize how screwed up this is, right?" Lorelai asked, peering through the truck's windshield into the darkness. "It's _your_ birthday. I'm supposed to be whisking you away to some fabulous, mysterious destination, not the other way around."

"It _is_ my birthday," Luke agreed. "That means I get to do anything I want today."

Lorelai waggled her eyebrows naughtily at him. "In that case, we should have just stayed home."

He smiled at that. _Home_. It wasn't truly his home yet, even though more and more of his stuff had migrated there and he spent fewer and fewer nights with Jess above the diner. Rory hadn't needed to worry about him moving in before she left for Yale after all, even though he'd been sorely tempted. By the time Lorelai had returned from the trip to Europe he was practically a zombie. He didn't know it was possible to miss someone so much. Emily's comments about how he'd wanted to eat Lorelai up nearly came true, so starved was he for her company again. He was afraid that his neediness was going to scare her off. Instead, it turned out that she'd missed him just as much.

"You already gave me the wind chimes this morning," he said, trying to hide how much he truly loved them. "How could anything be better than that?"

"Oh, I have plans!" she warned him. "You just wait."

He put out his hand and found hers. She squeezed his fingers through his glove and leaned up against him. She no longer sat over on the passenger side.

"Did Jess get that report for his Psych class done?" she asked. "He was balking about doing it; said it was a load of crap."

"Crap or not, it's done," Luke reported. "I think he pulled an all-nighter doing it, though. He was up when I got there this morning, and from the empty energy drinks scattered about, I don't think he'd gone to bed."

"Good," Lorelai nodded, satisfied.

He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. He didn't know what he would have done with Jess if Lorelai hadn't have been there. When they found out that Jess wasn't going to graduate from high school, it had been Lorelai who'd gone to bat for him. She'd worked her magic on the principal, finally getting him to agree to let Jess finish up in summer school. Then she'd turned on Jess, opening her own life to him, making him see that it would be worth it to get the diploma and go on to college. She was the one who made him finally see that he could beat the system. She was the one who convinced him that the best revenge was living well. She was the one who showed him that real satisfaction came from triumphing over all those who insisted 'you can't.'

He didn't know what would have happened when Jimmy Mariano blew through town, having suddenly developed an interest in the son he'd abandoned 18 years ago, if Rory and Lorelai hadn't already have helped him build a solid wall around Jess. His father's visit made Jess curious, and some day, Luke was sure that Jess would want to see him again. But Jess was able to shrug off the potential disruption, finishing school and signing up for classes at the community college in Hartford.

He had to smile a little bit, just thinking about it. Lorelai bragged just as much about Jess' grades as she did about Rory's at Yale.

"Oh, you stinker!" Luke made a turn into a town and Lorelai sat up straight, finally placing where they were. "You drove this far out of the way, just to bring us into the other side of Litchfield!"

"Yep," he grinned.

She turned to him, eagerly. "Are we going where I think we are?"

"Yep," he agreed again.

"Luke." He saw her push her hair back behind her ear and then let her finger hold the strand there, her one little tell of nervousness. "Are you sure that's where you want to go tonight?"

"I'm positive," he said. He put his hand down on her leg, rubbing it affectionately. "It still kills me, thinking about you there all alone on your birthday. Maybe we can go celebrate there tonight, and it'll push away those bad memories."

He heard her little exhale of relief. "OK. As long as you're sure."

He found a place to park and they walked to the entry. It was a weeknight, so there wasn't much of a crowd. He hung up their coats, making sure their gloves were tucked into the pockets.

They crossed the lobby, nodding at the hostess. As soon as they entered the bar, Lorelai spotted Hank.

He felt her wanting to run over to greet him, but she stopped, looking back over her shoulder at him. "Is it OK if I …?" she nodded over towards the bartender.

"Lorelai, you don't ever have to ask me that," he promised her.

She grinned at him and flew across the room. Hank stepped out from behind the bar to meet her.

"Lorelai!" he said, swinging her around in a hug. He put her down and looked her over. "Happiness agrees with you, I see."

"Yes, it does," she smiled back at him.

Luke came up, and Hank offered his hand. "Good to see you, Luke."

"You too," Luke said, taking his hand.

"I'm sorry I never got over to the Independence Inn to visit," Hank commented. "Maybe I can still bring Ian over sometime."

"Well, that would be difficult," Lorelai said, with nearly Luke's deadpan delivery, "seeing that it burned down."

Hank sucked in a stunned breath. "Oh, no! Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I am. Better than all right, actually. I miss the old place, because it was my home for a long time. But we're making a new place, one that's going to be ours, and it's going to be great. It'll be ready in the spring," she told him, smiling proudly. "I'll invite you to the grand opening."

"I'll look forward to that," Hank told her. "Let me know if you need a bartender," he added, winking.

Luke steered her to a small table by the fireplace. A server soon came over with menus and Lorelai eagerly picked one up, anxious to see if anything on it had changed. As usual, she was hungry.

Out of the corner of his eye, Luke watched her as she scanned the pages. He was glad she was distracted. Her obsession with getting something to eat made her oblivious to the fact that even now Hank was preparing the bottle of champagne that he'd called and requested earlier today. For sure she wouldn't notice Rory and Jess and her parents being whisked through the lobby to their table in the dining room.

She hadn't even noticed how many times his fingers had nervously traced over the outline of the ring box that was tucked away inside his suit pocket.

He was pretty sure he was going to get everything he wanted for his birthday. And that was no joke.


End file.
